April 5, 2022, at 4:00 PM

Original link

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that the following pecuniary interests were disclosed:

a)  Councillor J. Morgan discloses a pecuniary interest having to do with Item 4.3, related to City appointments to Western University’s Board of Governors, by indicating that Western University is his employer.  Councillor J. Morgan further discloses a pecuniary interest having to do with Item 3.1 part d), having to do with the City’s Climate Emergency Action Plan’s Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Western Ontario, by indicating that the University is his employer;

b)  Councillor J. Helmer discloses a pecuniary interest having to do with Item 4.3, related to City appointments to Western University’s Board of Governors, by indicating that he is employed by Western University.  Councillor J. Helmer further discloses a pecuniary interest having to do with Item 3.1 part d), having to do with the City’s Climate Emergency Action Plan’s Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Western Ontario, by indicating that he is employed by the University.

2.   Consent

None.

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Public Participation Meeting - Not to be heard before 4:05 PM - Climate Emergency Action Plan

2022-04-05 Staff Presentation - CEAP

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by M. Hamou

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment & Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the Climate Emergency Action Plan:

a)    the staff report dated April 5, 2022, containing details of the engagement and feedback received on the draft Climate Emergency Action Plan received between February 8 and March 25, 2022, BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    the Climate Emergency Action Plan, as appended to the staff report dated April 5, 2022 as Appendix “A”, BE APPROVED; it being noted that two substantive additions have been made to the draft plan:

i)    9.4      What are the Preliminary Benefits and Costs at the Household Level, and 

     ii)    11.6    Process to Receive and Review Ongoing Feedback;

c)    the Climate Emergency Action Plan Foundational Actions, as appended to the staff report dated April 5, 2022 as Appendix “B”, BE APPROVED; and

d)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated April 5, 2022 as Appendix “C” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on April 12, 2022 to:

i)    authorize and approve a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Western Ontario to advance joint climate change mitigation and adaptation research, technologies, analyses and knowledge, and

     ii)   authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the Memorandum of Understanding authorized and approved in part d) i), above;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the following communications with respect to this matter;

a communication dated February 26, 2022 from M. Bancroft OC, Climate Action Plan;

a communication dated March 27, 2022 from C. Butler;

a communication from Climate Action London;

a communication dated March 9, 2022 from S. Franke, Executive Director, London Environmental Network;

a communication from J. Kogelheide;

a communication dated March 27, 2022 from C. Kuijpers;

a communication dated March 27, 2022 from M. Luce;

a communication from D. Mailer;

a communication dated March 28, 2022 from M. Miksa, Executive Director, London Cycle Link;

a communication from B. Morrison;

a communication dated March 24, 2022 from C. Murray;

a communication dated March 27, 2022 from S. Pereira;

a communication from G. Sass;

a communication dated March 28, 2022 from AM Valastro;

a communication dated March 16, 2022 from L. Wall;

a communication dated March 28, 2022 from R. K. Jain;

a communication dated March 30, 2022 from H. Elias;

a communication dated March 30, 2022 from A. Johnson;

a communication dated March 22, 2022 from the Trees and Forests Advisory Committee;

a communication dated April 1, 2022 from M. Jutte;

a communication dated March 31, 2022 from S. Harrott, Executive Committee Chairperson, Friends of Urban Agriculture London, Ontario;

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard verbal delegations from the following individuals with respect to this matter;

  • staff presentation from J. Stanford, Director, Climate Change, Environment & Waste Management;

  • C. Kuijpers

  • D. Mailer

  • S. Franke, London Environmental Network

  • M. Miksa, London Cycle Link

  • G. Sass

  • B. Morrison

  • M. Larsen

  • D. Millar, London Electric Vehicle Association

  • K. Easton

  • J. B. Morton

  • R. McNeil

  • M. Hodge

  • L. Wall

  • M. Wallace, London Development Institute

  • M. Bancroft

  • A. Cantel

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by J. Fyfe-Millar

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Hillier

Motion to close the Public Participation Meeting.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by M. Hamou

Motion to approve parts a), b) and c):

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment & Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the Climate Emergency Action Plan:

a)    the staff report dated April 5, 2022, containing details of the engagement and feedback received on the draft Climate Emergency Action Plan received between February 8 and March 25, 2022, BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    the Climate Emergency Action Plan, attached as Appendix “A”, BE APPROVED; it being noted that two substantive additions have been made to the draft plan:

i)    9.4      What are the Preliminary Benefits and Costs at the Household Level, and 

     ii)    11.6    Process to Receive and Review Ongoing Feedback;

c)    the Climate Emergency Action Plan Foundational Actions, attached as Appendix “B”, BE APPROVED; and

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by M. Hamou

Motion to approve part d)

d)    the attached proposed by-law (Appendix “C”) BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on April 12, 2022 to:

i)    authorize and approve a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Western Ontario to advance joint climate change mitigation and adaptation research, technologies, analyses and knowledge, and

     ii)   authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the Memorandum of Understanding authorized and approved in part d) i), above.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   2021 Council Compensation Review Task Force Final Report

2022-04-05 Submission - CCRTF Final Report

Moved by J. Fyfe-Millar

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the following actions be taken with respect to Council compensation:

a)    consistent with current practice, and effective with the commencement of the next term of Council, the annual compensation for serving as a Ward Councillor BE SET at the 2020 median full-time employment income for Londoners as determined from the 2021 Census data, it being noted that while 2021 data will not be available until July 2022, it will be available well prior to the effective date of adjustment;

b)    the current formula for adjusting Council compensation on annual basis BE AMENDED to be based on the average annual variation in median full-time employment income determined from published Census data over the most recent census period (2021 Census data) as opposed to the Labour Index or CPI;

c)    the annual adjustment in Councillor compensation BE AUTOMATIC and administered by the Civic Administration;

d)    a review of Council Compensation BE UNDERTAKEN by an independent body, once per Council term, subject to the following:

(i)    the review should be completed no later than six months in advance of the date that nominations are accepted for the next municipal election;

(ii)    any adjustments should be effective on the first day of the next Council term;

(iii)    the Task Force should, as much as possible, reflect the diversity of the community and ideally the participants should have knowledge in the areas of municipal government, research, statistics, public engagement and compensation;

(iv)    the Task Force should be limited to no more than five individuals;

(v)    the review should include a review of the major supports required for Council Members to efficiently and effectively carry out their role to the best of their ability as the availability of these supports helps to inform compensation;

(vi)    the review should consider if median full-time income remains an appropriate benchmark for Council Member compensation;

(vii)    the review should consider if the current formula for interim adjustments remains appropriate; and

(viii)    public engagement should continue to be a component of the review process and that engagement should be undertaken in a manner which recognizes community preferences and needs.

e)    the following activities related to public engagement and notice BE TAKEN:

(i)    opportunities BE EXPLORED to determine what online public spaces (webpages, social media, etc.) might be available in order to ensure that the system of remuneration for Council, including annual adjustment, is transparent, open, and easily accessible and understandable to the public; and

(ii)    annual adjustments to Council compensation BE REPORTED to Committee and Council and recorded in the minutes of Committee and Council; and

f)    that NO ACTION BE TAKEN with respect to the consideration of a system of performance-based compensation for Council Members;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a verbal overview of the Final Report of the 2021 Council Compensation Task Force from D. Ross, Task Force Chair.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.2   Confirmation of Appointment to the Argyle Business Improvement Association

2022-04-05 Submission - Argyle BIA

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by E. Peloza

That Deborah Haroun, Supervisor at Children’s Place, BE APPOINTED to the Argyle Business Improvement Association Board of Management for the term ending November 14, 2022.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.3   City Appointees to Western University’s Board of Governors

2022-04-05 Submission - WU Board of Govenors

Moved by J. Fyfe-Millar

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the following actions be taken with respect to Western University’s Board of Governors:

a)  the term of Harold Usher BE ADJUSTED to end as of June 30, 2022, and that he be thanked for his services on the board recognizing he completed his full term; 

b)  all future appointments by the City of London to the University of Western Ontario BE MADE effective as of July 1, rather than December 1; and,

c)  the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to advertise for two positions, whose terms shall begin July 1, 2022;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated March 25, 2022 from R. Konrad, Chair, Board of Governors, Western University with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   (ADDED) 4th Report of the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Advisory Committee

2022-04-05 DIAAC Report

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by M. Cassidy

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 4th Report of the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Advisory Committee from its meeting held on March 17, 2022:

a)  the following actions be taken with respect to a ban on hate symbols:

i) the Municipal Council BE ADVISED that the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Advisory Committee supports the attached Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ resolution entitled, “Strengthening Canada’s Hate Speech Laws”, a call to strengthen federal laws to address hate speech including symbols of hate; and,

ii) the verbal presentation from Deputy Mayor J. Morgan, with respect to this matter, BE RECEIVED; 

b)  clauses 1.1, 2.1. 2.2, 3.1, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 and 5.1 BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

6.   Adjournment

Moved by P. Van Meerbergen

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the Meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 6:59 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (3 hours, 4 minutes)

As we begin the meeting, can I ask colleagues to please turn their screens on to the clerk. And confirm quorum. Thank you very much, and colleagues welcome to the seventh meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee, and it’s a virtual meeting still held during the COVID-19 emergency. Although we do have guests that do populate the community either through our website, through various internet formats, and also now in person, we would invite you to check the city’s website for current details of the COVID-19 service impacts.

Meetings can be viewed by a live streaming on YouTube and the city’s website. So, before I look for disclosures of continuing interest, I want to share with the public that the city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for Council standing or advisory committee meetings and information upon request. To make a request for any city service, please contact accessibility@london.ca or 519-661-2489, extension 2425. And to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC@london.ca, and with that, I will look for any disclosures of continuing interest.

I see Deputy Mayor Morgan. Yes, on item 4.3, this involves a letter related to appointments to the Board of Governors of my employer at Western University. So, I’ll declare on that. And I don’t yet have a conflict on the Climate Emergency Action Plan ‘cause we’re just listening to delegations, but I will ask staff if, when they bring it forward, there’s an appendix related to a memorandum of understanding between the city and the University of Western Ontario, which is likely something that I’ll have to vote on separately.

So, I just want to flag that for our staff in the future. That could be available separately when we actually vote on the final edition of the plan. That would be very helpful to me. So, all right, so we’ll see what that looks like as we get there, any other disclosures?

Councillor Hummer. Thank you. On the same matter, item 4.3, the appointments to the Board of Western. I’m also employed by Western and the Leclerc in our interest on that issue as well.

So noted, any other disclosures? I see no more disclosures, so thank you for that. There are no items on the consent agenda. We have one item on the scheduled agenda, and it starts with a staff presentation, and I’m going to turn this over to our Deputy City Manager, Kelly Schur.

Thank you, Your Worship. And I’m actually going to turn it over to Jay Stanford, our Director of Climate Change Environment and Waste Management. Mr. Stanford, please go ahead.

Thank you, Your Worship and members of SPPC. I’m just going to share my screen now. Mr. Mayor, can I assume that is on the screen for everyone?

Not only can you assume it, but why don’t we even confirm it? Thank you very much, sir. I will take just a few minutes, Mr. Chair, just to highlight what is in front of you tonight from a staff perspective.

Our slide deck contains many of the items, so I’m just going to go through a number of these very quickly and get to the last half, which I believe is the more important half. After Council directed us to go out in the community, we had about six weeks, and we managed to get all our information out there and add a few items. And in fact, we managed to produce a few different videos. We added some shorter products for people to look at.

And what was extremely nice was that not only were we able to get onto a number of committee agendas, such as the advisory committees, a number of the organizations in the community allowed us to enter existing meetings. And in some cases, a couple of special sessions were held to help spread the word that the draft climate emergency action plan was available for comment and feedback. And in fact, the number of the groups that you see on the screen here went the extra distance. And we’re very grateful that they were able to do that to really make sure that people were aware.

Our online activity over a six-week period, we’re extremely pleased when we received a lot of submissions directly and a lot of comments when we met people individually and in different types of sessions. Your report has done what we’ve done our best to try to capture the wealth of information that came forward. And essentially, we packaged together about sort of 100 different categories of responses under five headings that you see on the screen. And each one of those categories, there were probably two or three people providing a comment that was similar or a variation of that.

So our report has done its best to bring to your attention what we’ve heard from the community. In many cases, the support was very strong. Sometimes it was strong support with some very, very good ideas to add into it. Overall, there were very few that were suggesting that we should not move forward.

That was the support side. No, of course, there’s concerns, not a surprise. And in fact, this is where we spent more of our time. And what we’re hearing in some cases, no, the actions are not impactful enough and we need to do more immediately.

And in some cases, we need to do more in the long run and have those lists that we heard from folks that we needed to do more engagement. And that funding for both short time projects or short term projects and longer term projects needs to be clearer. And in some cases, some were saying that we needed to prioritize what we were doing. As I mentioned, the concerns is where we spent most of our time because we wanted to get a better appreciation.

And what you have on the screen is how we have tried our best to categorize that. In some cases, the concern was raised, but we know it was answered in seat. It was just not found. So it’s a clarity item.

And one example was it appears that many might not be aware of council’s strategic plan process and the fact that we were poured out on that price per year. And in fact, in that reporting out, we do talk about climate change. So those are elements where we need to be clearer in seat. There are cases where, well, people want to engage more now and know how we’re going to do it.

Well, in some cases like that, Mr. Chair and members of STPC, we wish to co-create some of the engagement with the community rather than indicate that we’ve got it figured out because quite honestly, in many areas, we don’t. We require the community, including business associations and community associations to help us determine the best way to engage. Other comments that came in and concern-wise, moving quicker, moving with more depth and breadth, financial information.

We heard that there was a need for more. And then, of course, there’s disagreement, no doubt about it. There are some actions that people, for example, do with carbon capture or carbon sequestration or offsets that people disagree with. We tracked very closely submissions that came in after our report was submitted into clerks and then made its way to your agenda.

And a very similar pattern came through and you’re going to be hearing from some of those folks tonight. We do have two additions that were placed into the draft seat to actually address in a big way we believe, what has come forward. And the first one really is, the ideas that have come forward from the community are very important. And we don’t want to see that we’re slowing them down in any ways.

In fact, we want to encourage more. So we’ve now made it very clear and see, with a special section, that we want to set up a process or processes to receive information on a more frequent basis and get into more or less idea generation and the right way or the expanded way of compiling that information from businesses, from the community to bring forward. After all, this is a living document. And one of the comments actually did note that.

The second addition of information was, we know very well that working with industry and businesses and institutions is key. But we do know that about half of the greenhouse gas comes from the way we move as individuals and the way we live in this community. So at SPTC last meeting, we had a good discussion on this. We’ve also heard that discussion from individuals that responded to the draft seat.

So we’ve added a more elaborate section on the need to really hope to educate and inform householders on the actions they can take, including a better understanding of what they need to invest financially, what they need to adjust and potentially not have to invest any dollars. And then as they look at longer term solutions, such as the purchase of a new appliance or even a vehicle, what they should be considering. So in your SPTC report tonight, we’ve identified the information that we were adding to seat, but in what’s key though is going forward, information like that needs to be very accessible. And at this point, the city of course is a good resource for that, but we think that we need to work in collaboration with the community and the business sector to get that information even deeper into the community.

My last slide, Mr. Mayor, in our report, that we’re very comfortable with where we’ve landed, what we’ve reviewed and the good points that have been highlighted and the concerns raised, and we have provided in our report our perspective on what could be considered a next step for SPPC, if they wish to take that on. What is important to note is that when we look at the wealth of information that’s come forward, this serves as an excellent checklist when we bring forward not only new ideas as part of future business planning with the multi-year budget process and strategic planning with council, but it also represents an excellent checklist for the ongoing work that has already been assigned to us to implement in 2022 and 2023. Mr.

Chair, I’ll end right there. Thanks very much. And I will say thank you, Mr. Stanford, for your thoughtful presentation.

We will have an opportunity to ask questions of Mr. Stanford as we go into the later to the agenda on this item, but I will tell you right now, we’re pleased that we have a number of individuals who would like to participate in the public participation meeting before we open that up. I will share with colleagues and with the public that we have received a number of representations in writing. Some of those are replicated by some of the individuals here, so if you feel you’ve made your point in writing, you’re welcome to do that.

I would also share with you that we have a five-minute maximum presentation. I will provide a 30-second warning just for the benefit of you that your time is about to finish, so we will ask you to promptly conclude. And as we call on you, please, to state your name and address for the record, and then we will take it from there. So with that, I will look for a motion to open the public participation meeting.

I see Councillor Hopkins seconded by Councillor Fife Miller. Thank you very much. Any comments, questions? Typically not to this, so why don’t we call the question?

I’ll vote manually in favor. Thank you. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 15 to zero. So I have a number of individuals that apparently will be participating on Zoom.

A few individuals who are in person, so I will go with the list that has been provided to me, and I will start the very first speaker. And if I’ve got your name correct, Carla Kuiperz, are you there, please? Yes, I am. So I’ll ask you again, state your name, your address, and you have five minutes, and we will start with you, please.

Thank you. My name is Carla Kuiperz. I live at 110 Cherry Hill Circle, London. I would like to commend and thank our Heartworking City Council.

Today’s scientific reports are warning us that animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change, creating more greenhouse gases than all transportation combined. While studying all 136 pages of the CEAP report, I was very disappointed to find no recommendations by City Council to change our diet to plant-based foods while decreasing animal-based foods, except for mention in 1.2.6B, to be exact, and I quote, encourage climate-friendly diets and food choices, followed by, in brackets, buying foods grown and produced locally, even though buying and growing food locally does save fossil fuels, it’s not as effective as following a plant-based diet. It is of the utmost importance that London residents are informed that only plant-based diets are truly climate-friendly. Meat, eggs, and dairy are not climate-friendly.

Londoners need to hear this from their leaders at council. Why is there so much resistance by our leaders to recommend a plant-based diet? Even though it is the easiest change, everyone can make immediately. The London public needs to understand that animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change due to the billions of farm animals in meat, dairy, and egg industries.

We need to be well informed and convinced in order to cooperate with the CEAP. A report from the United Nations states that meat production makes more greenhouse gases than all the plains, trains, and cars in the world. Let’s explain to Londoners why this is so. Ruminant animals like cows and sheep burp methane, which is 28 times more potent than CO2.

Their faces release in nitrous oxide and greenhouse gas 156 times more potent than CO2. All of the deforestation for grazing land decreases the number of trees removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Farm animals take in huge amounts of water and food. While the fecal matter pollutes, soil, and water, Londoners might be surprised to know that as much drinkable water goes into making one hamburger as taking 60, 60 showers.

The Canada food diet revised in 2019 clearly recommends making fruits and vegetables half of our daily food intake. Another two quarters are whole grains and protein foods, such as tofu or beans. Teaching our children in elementary school about the new food guide is not enough to entice them to eat veggies and fruits. Parents need to learn to make good food choices at home.

How do we teach them? Libraries could offer cooking classes to make exciting plant-based dishes, while newspapers could distribute daily recipes, lunchrooms and kitchens at high schools and universities could offer veggie burgers, veggie dogs, beans, tofu wraps, greens, while students take courses about climate change prevention. We need to make our children understand they are the future. Our hospitals can provide fresh fruits and tasty veggie dishes, whereas churches and community centers could arrange plant-based potlops.

Buses could carry signs, ads, depicting soil Sundays, meatless Mondays, or even tofu Tuesdays. Fast food restaurants will continue to add veggie dishes to compete with vegan restaurants. The science is here. Our forests will be gone within 20 years, and our drinking water within 30.

How long will we continue to have fresh air? London Climate Safe recently invited city council to the screening of “Eating Our Way to Extinction.” Please watch this movie. There is little time left. Our council needs to take a powerful stand against climate change.

A change in diet is the easiest, most efficient, and most immediate one to make. Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll now look to Rob McNeil, please.

Five minutes, please state your address as well, please. Let’s call for Rob McNeil. Thank you, Dan Mailer, are you there? Yes, I am here, Mr.

Mayor. All right, Mr. Mailer, you have five minutes. Please state your address, please.

Yeah, 200 queens have. And I want to thank the committee for giving this opportunity to make submissions. I want to applaud the city for their work on all environmental issues. A cleaner city is a better city, and it’s safe to say that everyone is in favor of a greener, healthier, and cleaner environment.

But on the issue of climate change, it’s always worth remembering that climate prediction is not an exact science. Even the US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration admits that the 10-day weather forecast is inaccurate, 50% of the time. So a few key facts that are worth remembering. Climate change is real, and it has been going on for a million years, and it impacts mostly negative.

But common portrayals of a devastation and doom and gloom are unfounded and misrepresent the UN climate panel literature, according to Born Lombard. Ontario also is doing very well overall, already with 80% to 90% of our electricity generated by either hydro, nuclear, or renewables. Canada produces just 1.6% of the greenhouse gases, primarily CO2 in the world. My overall message to the city, and thank you for allowing me to make this submission, on the climate action plan is this.

I would urge council to take a moderate, balanced, go slow, and cautious approach on this issue. My view of the future is bright and positive. As shown in the book Progress by Johann Norberg, the arc of human history for the past 10,000 years that homo sapiens have been on the earth is an arc of innovation, discovery, adaptation, improvement, and progress. And the future of humans remains bright, regardless of the doom and gloom scenarios.

However, I understand that the city has declared that this is an urgent concern. And I would only remind council that their priorities are local in nature. Constituents and their needs and their current needs are the important factors and priorities at this time. It’s important to make sure that you don’t kill the patient in trying to find the cure, and that we don’t dampen economic growth and progress in the city, because prosperity creates the wealth that allows us to adapt to the climate change realities.

Some have said that getting to net zero is an expensive utopian pipe dream, and there’s no way to get there without experiencing ruinous economic hardship, according to the professor of economics, Ross McKittrick at the University of Guelph. So I would urge the city to be transparent about the cost to taxpayers of all of these steps, and that the cost be kept to a minimum, and that the city continue to focus on the nuts and bolts, priority issues that Londoners care about most, roads and bridges, services, taxes, promoting a healthy environment for large and small business, a well-stocked library, affordable living, and a more attractive downtown. So as I close, I warn that an overemphasis on the issue of climate change at the municipal level can distract and divert attention and resources from the practical or essential local issues that Londoners care most about. In implementing the plan, the best approach I would submit would be to use the strength of persuasion rather than take a punitive approach, dangle a carrot rather than the bully stick.

And finally, adopting a cautious and measured approach, make sure that you don’t kill the patient economically to cure the disease. The book I keep coming back to is a book progress by Joanne Norberg, which is a study of history and the great progress that mankind has made over the last number of centuries. And it identifies wealth and affluence as the greatest antidote to tackling pollution and environmental issues. This is historically proven and beyond debate.

He warns us not to kill the patient to cure the disease when dealing with the issue of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to push too hard, too fast, could be counterproductive. So those essentially are my submissions. I really thank the city for allowing me a time to make the presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to Council. Thank you, Mr. Miller.

And next on our guest list, we have Ms. Frank, if you would state your name and address place. And you have five minutes. Great, thank you.

Skyler Frank, Ward 1199 Spring Bank Drive. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to SPPC on this important topic. I’m the executive director at the London Environmental Network. And I’ll be speaking on behalf of our organization and our membership, which is over 47 environmental groups, many of which join me here tonight, which is great.

And many submitted some letters as well. I’ll start off just by saying thank you very much to all the staff who worked on this plan. It’s very comprehensive. And I know a lot of hard work went into it.

Generally, our membership was very supportive of the plan as it stands. And we really applaud the past use of the clown emergency screening tool last year on the major road projects. We did submit a letter about this topic, but I really wanted to quickly highlight some items. So regarding the plan, we believe that our community can rise to the challenge.

We know we’ve heard some rhetoric about maybe this being a bit of a tough one, but we’ve seen that many of the challenges that are outlined in the plan are something that we can be excited about, making our communities more livable, more walkable, connecting our neighbors together outside, moving our bodies more freely throughout our community, using the bus or cycling or walking. And we think that these are all excellent things that many of the plans that the city has done lead towards. We believe it’s very possible to change how we live, how we work, how we commute and how we play. And we know it’s possible, ‘cause we’ve seen it all happen before and seen it most recently with COVID.

We’ve seen in the lockdowns how people start to embrace the green spaces, people walking throughout all the ESA’s across the city, people using their bikes and the cycling infrastructure, people enjoying staycations and working from home, and the importance of having a really healthy and stable food system, as well as a strong and vibrant local economy. And a lot of that is exactly what this plan is about. And we believe that lenders can be excited about these changes if they’re communicated effectively and supported in the transition to a low carbon city. And that’s really to me what this plan is about.

Secondly, we do want to reiterate, and I’m sure you’re all kind of tired of hearing this, but an emergency implies immediate action being taken to avert a crisis. And this plan is three years after a declaration. So given the time sensitive nature of climate change, we actually think it is not the time to slow down, but actually to go faster. And luckily, a lot of the actions in this plan are already part of approved plans, like the urban agriculture strategy, the 60% waste diversion strategy, vision zero, this is also part of already almost approved plans, fingers crossed, like the London plan, and plans that are going to be in the works like the master mobility plan.

So we got the plans, we’ve got lots of great plans, and now we really want to see some action, action that includes building inwards and upwards, improving our active and public transportation, wretched building buildings across the city. So to summarize, we’d really love to see council approve the draft seat as soon as possible and start taking those actions. And at the same time, we do have three little asks for council to direct staff on some following next steps, including right now the targets are tied to 2030, 2040 and 2050, we’d really like to see these targets tied to four year council terms or the budget cycle, just to make sure that we’re on track to meeting those targets. We would also like to see, as Jay mentioned in his presentation, some specific and immediate priorities coming out of this plan, as well as the budget for those.

So we do think it’s really important for the plan to be approved, so we can move on to the next phase, which is meeting those targets through actions, and our organization and the environmental community across the city, we’re ready to step up, we’re ready to help learners retrofit their homes, get out of their cars, plant trees, plenty of species, so we’re ready to take action. So thank you very much for your time and best wishes on the deliberation of the rest of this plan, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Frank, Ms.

Mixa, are you there? Hello, I am, can you hear me? We can, I’ll ask you please, your name address and you’ll have five minutes and we’ll ask you to go ahead please. Sure, my name is Molly Mixa, 137 Bruce Street.

Good afternoon council, thank you for hearing me, thank you for seeing and declaring the climate emergency three years ago, thank you for taking responsibility as a council. I am the executive director of London Cycling, we’re a not-for-profit organization, dedicated to helping Londoners ride bikes more often. I’m here to speak in favor of the climate emergency action plan, which I have read in full. This is a big document, has a lot to say, responds to a crisis that is not or should not be political, this is existential.

If I can quote from The Guardian in an article from yesterday, the world can still hope to stave off the worst ravages of climate breakdown, but only through a now or never dash to a low carbon economy and society, scientists have said, in what is in effect a final warning for governments on the climate. Greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, to give the world a chance of limiting future heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 1.5 degrees Celsius is the level above which many of the effects of climate breakdown will become irreversible. And this is drawing on the work of thousands of scientists.

Speaking about the CEAP from London Cycling’s perspective, we’re very interested in seeing the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions address, that being vehicle gasoline, which accounts for almost 50% of total emissions, according to the CEAP. We are keen to see work plan area of focus for work done, the transforming transportation and mobility work plan. Quoting from this work plan, personal vehicles account for most of London’s transportation emissions at almost 1 million tons of GHT emissions per year. We need to provide more accessible mobility options for Londoners of all ages and abilities all year long.

In terms of recommendations, London’s cycle link would like to see, as Skyler said, four-year targets connected to council terms, included in the final version of this document. We’d like to see the climate emergency screening tool being used regularly on projects going forward. And we would like to see separate data for cycling and active transportation versus buses and public transportation. I can talk about the other important work plans in the CEAP, including demonstrating leadership in municipal process and collaborations work plan.

I promise you that my organization is ready to collaborate on this. We are ready to run with this plan, motivated already by the draft plan. We are, for example, incorporating climate change into our curriculum for our grade 5 and 6 safe cycling workshops. So I would ask, if we are ready to act on this and eager, just for some support and guidance, then I’m sure we’re not alone among groups and citizens.

I’d also like you to consider climate anxiety. This is a real issue. People feel a sense of impending doom. But if they’re able to take action, their anxiety decreases.

If we can see that action is coming from the top and that we have a role to play together, the anxiety decreases. I ask you, as a council, to make Londoners feel like you’re taking action and to take action and to please pass the CEAP. Just a few words as well about resiliency. I did a podcast with the London Environmental Network last year called London, Ontario, one of Canada’s greenest cities, question mark.

And I spoke to a lot of local experts about water waste, urban forests, urban food, local food and cycling. I’m going to learn a lot about resiliency. We have seen warnings about ticks and Lyme disease, other invasive insects that may destroy trees or make us sick. We have seen flooding increase.

Takes a long time to replace, for example, combined sewers. Every flood means raw sewage flooding into the river down to our neighbors and First Nations communities. These are just a couple of examples. We need to act on these things.

If community building is not your deal, maybe resiliency will be. So we need plans. We need backup plans. We need action because our inaction now will be far more expensive down the line.

So I repeat, this is not political. This is all hands on deck. This is now. And I ask you to please move forward with this plan.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Mixa. Is Gabarza Sasse there, please?

Yes, I’m here. Please fit in your name, your address, and you’ll have five minutes. Thank you. If you could please start on the video.

I would appreciate that. Thank you. So my name is Gabarza Sasse and I am at 101 Forward Avenue. Thank you for this chance to speak.

I have read through the Climate Emergency Action Plan report, which I believe to be a good document to help us charge the path of our city into an uncertain future, primatically and otherwise. While I do think that the necessary nuts and bolts are there, the report lacks a clear sense of what our top priority should be. I’d like to suggest two items that, in my opinion, should be at the top of Council’s priority list for climate action. These two items are the creation of walkable communities and the fostering of circular, local, and just economies that are needed to make these walkable communities become environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable places.

While the CAP in its current form does mention the importance of active transportation and complete neighborhoods, it leaves out the key structural pieces required to create walkable communities. One of the key ways cities become walkable is by reaching a certain density in order to have a viable climate-pense, CAP needs to include minimum density requirement for all new developments. Currently, our London plan has a target of 60% single-detached housing developments. Unfortunately, you can’t make sprawling suburbs walkable communities no matter how many bicycle lanes or sidewalks are installed.

Older parts of the city need also to be made denser. However, instead of building 40-story high-rises which don’t fit the skyline of London and are very expensive to maintain in the long term, the building height should be capped to a maximum of six stories. The second structural piece to walkable communities is that land uses must be allowed to mix to a much greater degree than are currently allowed. Otherwise, what are people walking to exactly?

If they’re workplaces, faith communities, recreation, and commercial centers are too far away, they will not walk or bike. We must allow mixed land uses again. The third structural piece of walkable communities is that the multiple walkable communities— or let’s call them the urban villages— that would comprise London of the future— must be connected by world-class public transit and bicycle infrastructure. People will still have various reasons to traverse the city.

And for that, our city must provide viable options. Of course, world-class, class, public, and active transport only happens when the necessary density is there. So to recap, our top goal needs to be the creation of walkable communities of high density, but low skyline development with mixed land use. This is the climate action that municipal council has the most power over and should pursue with haste.

The second priority on our climate agenda, in my opinion, should be the fostering of local circular and just economies. The CEAP in its current form does mention circular economies, but leaves out the importance of local or bioregional economies, as well as the justice angle. As all of us can see, global supply chains can easily fall apart and far away production centers drop out for various reasons. Producing more of our own energy, food, and other consumables closer to home doesn’t only reduce our climate emissions in a big way, but also creates a far more resilient local economy, an economy that is able to better withstand outside shocks.

Our economies also need to be just. We have to bring everyone along, and most especially the marginalized. Climate change and economic changes always hit the most marginalized people first. Our climate plan needs to focus on them just as much as the rest of society.

So our second priority should be the building of local circular and just economies. With this, priority to City can lead along with business and civic communities. The document I submitted to Council contained some more of my thoughts of how we can make the CEAP document stronger and thereby creating a resilient and sustainable London that will be able to transition to a thriving post carbon future. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Sass. Don Malar, are you there? Final opportunity, please, for Don Malar.

Thank you, Bob Morrison, are you there? I’m here. If you could state your name and address five minutes, and you can proceed now, please. Thank you, Bob Morrison, one growth nursery.

I would like to make a few comments on the parallels between urban sprawl and the lack of climate action. Historically, both have pushed off consequences, responsibility, and costs to future generations. And two have created inequalities. Many studies have shown that urban sprawl is financially unsustainable.

Development fees and property tax from single-family homes sprawl development falls short of the costs associated with many of the services the city becomes responsible for. Residents inside the current built-up areas partially subsidize new suburban expansion, however, however, to a large extent, an infrastructure gap grows, and the real costs are pushed off to the future for someone else to deal with. This parallels the historical approach to emissions, where emissions and environmental damage has been treated as an externality and ignored in lieu of short-term profits or a focus on short-term planning or short-term budgeting. And of course, urban sprawl promotes car dependency, which is a significant source of emissions.

Generally, the harm from emissions has been pushed off for a future generation to deal with. Tenants of apartment buildings, as compared to the large single-family homes that dominate a lot of the urban sprawl, represent families that generally are most likely to be financially burdened by rising electricity costs or have an inability to adapt to the climate changes, including weather extremes. They are also the least able to influence their month-to-month costs or emissions. I realize that financial assistance does fall within some of the provincial and federal programs and that the seat has documented there is a shared responsibility with other levels of government.

However, decisions made by the city relating to development, tax rates, transportation, and other initiatives within the seat do directly impact the financial burden of these families who are largely not represented in decision-making. Adding to the fact they are subsidizing suburban sprawl, tax rates in London are not equal. Tenants of apartment buildings bear an unfair property tax burden. In relative terms, they are paying a significant higher rate than single-family homeowners.

These are the residents of London that can least afford it and are though the families where housing costs are higher percentage of their family budget. Climate change impacts are going to amplify these inequalities and needs to be addressed. I feel that a thoughtful and consistent approach is needed. Meeting the need to reduce our emissions and creating a financial, sustainable, and equitable future needs to be addressed within the seat.

But there’s also important that the recently-decrated climate lens, the London plan, the interim emission reduction goals, and equality be specifically referenced in the hundreds of smaller, ongoing decisions, especially those impacting development and tax fairness. Given the expected population growth of London, there will be pressures to quickly approve solutions that, again, are short-term focused. There’ll be even pressures to expand the urban growth boundary, which must be rejected. It is important that we grow inward and upward, consistent with the London plan.

The inward and upward growth should include easily accessible public spaces for all, include mixed use, especially in neighborhoods bordering transit corridors. Whereas necessary to have new development within the urban growth boundary, these neighborhoods should be complete walkable neighborhoods with mixed use and multi-unit residential while protecting existing urban forest lands. I look forward to the Committee and Council proving the seat and for the upcoming mobility master plan later in the year to be consistent with the goals of the seat. Thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Morrison. Mary Ann Larson, are you there? Yes, I am.

If you could please state your name and address, you have five minutes, thank you. Thank you. Honorable Mayor Holder and City Councilors, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. My name is Dr.

Mary Ann Larson, and I live at 19 Cathcart Street here in London. I’m a mother and a professor emerata from Western’s Faculty of Education. I took early retirement so I could devote my time to doing all that I can to address the climate crisis as I feel very strongly that this is the most pressing issue that our world and our city faces right now. I volunteer with Climate Action London and Greening Sacred Spaces, which is a group that works with faith communities to engage in greening initiatives to address the climate crisis.

In my five minutes, I would like to make three points. The first is that I urge City Council to approve the SEAP and start implementing it right away. Now is not the time to be slow. The second point is to note that the climate emergency is not only a problem for individual Londoners to address, but for all businesses, organizations, institutions, and the city itself.

And my third point is that I urge City Council to provide supports and direction for all Londoners to become climate leaders. Let me talk about each of those points in my remaining time. First, I urge the council to approve the SEAP report and start implementing the strategies now. The draft report outlines the background, process, and steps that have already been taken by the city of London to research and write this draft report, as well as the community consultation that has taken place.

I’m really proud to be a part of a city that has been so thorough in the creation of this draft report, but now is not the time for further study or even to use the public participation part of the process to rewrite major sections of this already excellent report. Right now, what we need from city councilors is your support to pass the SEAP and start implementing strategies expeditiously, not slowly or cautiously, as we’ve heard from another speaker this evening, but quickly to address the climate crisis now. Second, the climate emergency is not only a problem for individuals to address. There is much of value in the draft report, including the work plans by area of focus, and by the way, I have read the whole report.

My only suggestion here is to ensure that the focus is not solely on individual Londoners to change their lifestyles, but a clear recognition of the systemic nature of climate change that requires systems changes, not simply tinkering at the individual household level, with recommendations to recycle, walk, and bicycle, or all of which are very important and essential, but we must also hold businesses, corporations, educational institutions, and the city of London, and all other large bodies accountable to do all they can do to reduce greenhouse gases over the long term. Third, I urge council to provide supports and encouragement for all Londoners to become climate leaders. It’s essential that city council provide direction and supports for individuals, companies, organizations, et cetera, to implement the strategies outlined in the SEAP. Without those supports in clear direction, Londoners might not have the motivation or the ability, financial or otherwise, to take action.

I urge the city to engage with Londoners so that our citizens, many of whom are low income and marginalized, don’t feel hopeless about the climate crisis, but feel inspired to take change and to each become a climate leader. Finally, you have heard criticisms this afternoon about the SEAP. It’s not a perfect policy, but it is a very good one. The SEAP, as any report of this nature, is intended to be a living document that will be revised and improved over time.

Again, I return to my initial point. The draft SEAP is an excellent report, and while not perfect, I urge you to vote immediately to accept it, knowing that future changes can be made to the document in light of feedback from the public consultation process. Please act now, our future depends on it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Larson, colleagues and guests. I have been reminded that your providing address is optional. So with that, I’m now gonna go back to Mr.

Don Malar. I understand you are on the call. Please state your name and address as you choose five minutes, starting now, please. Thank you.

My name is Don Malar, and I live at unit three, 1144 Cornitions, I have a language. I’m a retired career director, and I’m current president of London Electric Vehicle Association. I would like to speak about the transportation sector, which is responsible for 47% of greenhouse gas emissions. So it needs a lot of work.

First of all, in the SEAP, there is no mention of the airport and no mention of the trains which run through London, and both need to be addressed. Secondly, the bicycle paths the city have built are great for recreational use, but they are not practical in the winter or for commuting to work on rainy days or very hot days in the summer. London’s rate of adoption of electric cars is very low. It is only about one fifth of the Canadian average.

That means that electric vehicle sales in London are only about one to two percent of new cars. When in the rest of Canada, they are about five to 10%. In Europe, they are between 25 and 50%. Why is this so low in an affluent city like London?

Number one cost. This was the number one reason Canadians are elected to buy electric vehicles according to a federal study by the purely council office. We need to petition the Ontario government to add to the federal electric car incentive so that electric cars are more affordable. This is currently being done in Quebec and BC.

In some cities in Quebec, the municipal government also offers an incentive for the purchase of home charging units which cost on average between $1,500 and $3,000 to install. This could be done here in London as well. Number two, lack of quick chargers. London suffers from a lack of quick chargers anywhere but at Wellington Road in the 401.

Lack of infrastructure was the number two reason Canadians are elected to buy electric vehicles. Number three, no electric buses. Electric buses are very visible and would help to lend legitimacy to the transition to electric cars. London waited too long to look into purchasing electric buses and now our order for a few test buses is stuck in a long lineup of orders by other cities for electric buses.

Wealth by contrast has embraced electric buses and already has 10 in operation and another 60 on order. Number four, Reluctancy of car dealerships to spend the time, money and effort required to transition to the sale of electric cars and light trucks. We need to find a method to encourage car dealers to become certified to sell and repair electric cars. Right now, a large number aren’t certified and quite frankly, some are not interested in becoming certified.

If they’re still reluctant after some encouragement, we need to find a way to either incentivize their transition or disincentivize the reluctance to transition. Number five, Londoners’ love of gas thirsty, large SUVs and four by four pickup trucks. Sales in this sector are growing so fast that in the last three years, the greenhouse gas is produced from large SUVs and four by four pickup trucks increased so much that it eclipsed all of the greenhouse gases saved by the sale of electric cars. How are we ever going to decrease greenhouse gases as this continues?

Finally, here are my comments on the climate emergency action plan. The first thing we need to do is to hire a manager and two assistants who will be in charge of the climate emergency action plan and nothing else. This way, they can concentrate on the job at hand without issues, other issues interfering. The second thing we need to do, and I agree with both Scarlett Frank and Molly Nixa, is that we need to change the target dates from five year targets to four year targets and align them with the municipal elections so that each elected council will be responsible for which climate action goals are or are not done during their tenure of office.

The third thing we need is better two-way communication between the climate emergency action plan staff and community groups like the London Electric Vehicle Association, who’s interested in line with those of the climate emergency action plan. They might just find that we are ready, willing, and able to help a lot. 30 seconds. Thank you.

My name is Don Miller and I’m the president of the London Electric Vehicle Association. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller. Kate Easton, are you there?

Yes, I’m here. Ms. Easton, you have five minutes. Your name, please, and your address is optional.

Thank you. I’m Kate Easton. I live at 549 Fanshawe Park Road West. I’m pretty new to London and I am here in June.

And when people ask me what I like about London, I always say I love the TVP and I love the storm water marshes because there’s so many birds here. It’s a beautiful city and I think we wanna keep it that way. I have spent much of my career trying to reduce the environmental effects of Alberta’s oil sands production by increasing the recycled water, reducing the energy used to extract the oil and trying to protect species at risk. I’d like to tell you that that’s not gonna ever be enough.

Production of oil only accounts for 20% of its lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. Using it is the other 80%. We need to stop using oil and gas as soon as possible. I was very impressed with London’s draft Climate Emergency Action Plan.

It recognizes that the city cannot do this alone and needs to partner with everyone in the community. The plan addresses all of the key areas for action and is already starting to work on many of them. As Mr. Stanford mentioned, the plan is a living document and there’s the flexibility to add actions as new ideas come to light.

The main weakness in the plan is that it relies on encouraging people to take action rather than requiring it. One action in particular made me a little bit angry. In the area of focus seven action plan, it states that new city buildings and retrofits will only be built to net zero if additional funding beyond baseline levels is available. To me, this leaves far too much wiggle room.

Why would we continue to invest in poorly designed buildings? A building is about choices. You put in the insulation that is really needed to greatly reduce heating and cooling requirements or do you spend the money on trendy sinks countertops, a big furnace and a large AC unit? Even when building without all of the bells and whistles, there’s a choice between spending a little bit of money out of the front, we’re spending more on utilities and maintenance over time.

As Dr. Larson said, systemic changes are needed and this is one of them. It’s very difficult for individuals to choose how buildings are built and designed and I think there is a need for regulation here. I think in this time of crisis, many of us wish we could do more to help the people of Ukraine.

Do we want to continue to feel this way with respect to people affected by climate change? Climate change is going to devastate hundreds of millions of people. Entire nations will be underwater. Do we wait until that happens and offer to taking refugees or do we do everything we can now to prevent the worst effects of climate change?

Do we have a right to a 2000 square foot home when heating and cooling it will cause others to lose their homes? We know how to fix this problem. In a case of buildings, it generally won’t cost us much more in the long run. We can’t afford not to act as the cost of natural disasters, hotter summers and shorter winters are much higher.

I support approval of the plan and moving forward quickly with action. I ask that we strengthen the actions and require net zero or passive buildings going forward. So longer we wait to act more difficult. It would be to address the challenge.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Is Bruce Martin there? Yes, I am.

Mr. Martin, if you’ll state again your name, address as you wish, you have five minutes please. Thank you. My name is Bruce Martin.

I live at 11 Doncaster Avenue and I want to thank the members of the committee and the honorable mayor for an opportunity to speak this afternoon. I want to reiterate points that others have made. First, I would like to emphasize my overwhelming approval for the seat and to emphasize the importance of systematic action. In other words, it’s not enough for individual citizens to initiate small changes, but we need to see systematic changes in the way the city of London and other large institutions in our city, such as the University of Western Ontario, conduct their affairs.

I lead an organization called Quiet Communities. We’re a grassroots organization of concerned citizens, ecologists, chemists, brain scientists and medical professionals. And we are unified in our interest in bringing about cleaner and more sustainable and quieter communities through the reduction of the use of two stroke motors for the provision of cosmetic lawn care. Needless to say, then, I was very heartened by the seep in a particular section 2.3 subsection B, which calls for a review of the use of fossil fuel consuming lawn care equipment by completing the study of emerging best practices and reporting back by 2023.

So this is a promising first step. We’ve been calling for this sort of discussion in a municipal level now for a couple of years, and it’s very heartened to see at least that initiative is moving forward. But I would like to emphasize that this is a very small step, because we already know what should go into that report. We already know that pound for pound two stroke engines are the number one carbon emitting instruments around.

So running a gas powered leaf blower for one hour produces carbon emissions equal to running a Ford F-150 driving at 1500 kilometers. This is in spite of the fact that alternatives exist. Every gas powered lawn care device that you can imagine from clippers to mowers to blowers to rideable mowers. All of those, there are commercially available electronic alternatives.

They are on the market now. These technologies, I should say, the gas powered technologies are being put towards non-essential uses, cosmetic lawn care. We know from the national conservancy of Canada that leaves can be left in place. If you don’t want to see them, mulch them, and they will be taken care of by microorganisms in the soil, they do not need to be blown around by leaf blowers.

Recognizing the carbon impact of two stroke motors, other jurisdictions in North America have already instituted bans on these. A Rawson King, Counselor Rawson King, who’s a city counselor in Ottawa is forwarding initiative to terminate the use of two stroke motor engines in Ottawa. The entire state of California recently instituted a ban on all gas powered lawn care equipment, clippers, blowers, and mowers. Beyond the carbon footprint, of course, the use of these devices just diminishes the livability of our community.

Just this morning, I had four of these next door to me blowing out 90 decibels of noise for over three hours. I mean, I had to escape to the university so I could do my work. They emit carcinogens and fine particulates. Everything from asbestos dust to tire dust and things, they pulverize them into small particles, they can be absorbed immediately by our lungs, enter our blood system and damage every known organ system in the body.

As a medical colleague of mine said, there is absolutely no reason why these instruments should belong in our neighborhoods. They simply are dangerous and polluting. 30 minutes. - So we already know it should be in the report.

The question is what will be in the report and that depends on who’s asked, who’s consulted. So I welcome the opportunity to work. If the SEAP has passed to work with City Council to be consulted on the design of this report and I look forward to all of Londoners’ voices being heard on this issue. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak this afternoon.

Thank you very much, Mr. Morton. I’ll look to the clerk. We have any other individuals not in person that are looking to speak to this issue.

Not that I’m aware of your worship. Thanks very much. I know we do have some individuals present. In committee rooms and I will look to, I can’t tell you which committee room it is.

I’m told now it’s committee room five. So our first speaker, if you are there, please, is Marianne Hodge there if you could come forward. And if you’re there, please state your name, your address is optional and you’ll have five minutes as you begin. Go ahead, please.

I’m just going to hold you up for a second as we unmute the room. I’m actually not sure what that means but we’re going to do that anyway. Clerk will advise accordingly. Ms.

Hodge, if you just bear with us a moment, please. Thank you. Ms. Hodge, if you can hear me, can you give that a test on the microphone?

We just want to make sure it’s working, please. Not yet. And imagine your five minutes has almost stopped kidding. So with that, we will get the connection going in just a moment, please.

Okay, we’re on. Okay, so it looks like we’re ready to go and having had a change of heart, Ms. Hodge, if you now have a full five minutes, please go ahead. Thank you.

It’s Marianne Hodge, 310 Wolf Street. Thank you for taking the time to invite us to speak tonight. I’m speaking not just as a representative of Climate Action London, but as a Londoner who feels the anxiety of the times, socially, politically and environmentally. There is so much in the seep and so much that can be said.

I love how everyone has their own personal connection to the work expressed by the seep. And I think it is a reflection of its scope. At 136 pages, it really highlights to me how climate change affects us all in everything we do every day. Politics today divides people to polarize views and thinking about what’s in it for me.

The climate crisis shows us that in reality, we are all connected. By helping others, we help ourselves. Money spent on bike lanes reduces healthcare costs and traffic congestion for all, not just cyclists. There is strong evidence of co-benefits between climate solutions and human wellbeing dimensions.

Project Drawdown has just released a Climate Poverty Connections report that highlights how 80 out of Project Drawdown’s 100 climate solutions have co-benefits. These benefits are strongest for the world’s poorest countries, but they’re also relevant for London. Climate justice means that actions must be infused by equity. To quote from Paul Hawkins’ new book, Regeneration, social systems require the same level of care, attention, and kindness as ecosystems.

They are incomparable yet inseparable. The state of the environment accurately reflects the violence, injustice, disrespect, and harm we do to people of different cultures, beliefs, and skin color. As Jane Goodall points out in her forward to the book, you save forests and species by helping to create better lives for people. Here in London, that can mean improving public transit so that more people are encouraged to take it, thereby improving the service for those who depend on it, reducing air pollution and easing traffic congestion for those in cars.

Entrepreneurs understand that everything starts with an idea, with a little imagination. How many people imagined a smartphone before it was invented? I have heard it said that the climate crisis is stalled by a lack of imagination. Cities are considered the birthplace of civilization and can be the birthplace for transformation.

For all those who, like me, want to see change happen, but can’t see how we can transform our current economic system that is built on growth to pivot to one that is based on the well-being of all, here is a dream to consider. I hope you can already see glimpses of this dream in London today. People naturally walk in the city to enjoy its distinct neighborhoods, safety, peacefulness and greenery. Buildings and transport are electrified with renewable energy.

Mobility is quiet, affordable and non-polluting. Fresh local food is available within walking distance at affordable prices supplied by diverse urban farming communities. Housing will be dense in order to create more open green spaces. Trees and shrubs are abundant and rooftops will be farms and gardens.

Unused industrial spaces will become vertical farms. Landscape terraces and medians are sanctuaries for birds and pollinators. Local and regionally made products, especially food and clothing, will displace remote manufacturing where practical. Roadways and parking lots will transform into housing, parks, gardens and recreation.

Every municipality has facilities for food and industrial composting, embracing zero waste. 30 seconds. Community infrastructure is more resilient, more diverse and more decentralized in order to deal with more disruptive weather events. The seat demonstrates that we know what we need to do and takes us further into the direction of this dream.

But time is of the essence. I ask you tonight to not delay any further. Please vote tonight to accept the seat in its current form so that we can all move forward to make this dream a reality. Thank you.

And thank you very much. I’ll ask if Laura Wall is present in the committee room. If you would come forward, please, your name, please address as optional and you will have five minutes, please. Thank you.

My name is Laura Wall and I live in Wortley Village with my husband and adult son. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I’m here to urge council to unanimously approve this plan. We’re in an emergency and we can’t delay any longer.

One of the biggest challenges will be getting businesses, corporations, governments and yes, individuals to change their behavior so that what we produce, how and where we build and what we eat and how we move are considerate of the climate emergency. As highlighted in the most recent UN report on climate change, urban areas are key to reducing emissions through transportation, buildings, planning and enhance natural solutions for carbon uptake and storage. When my family purchased our home two decades ago, what I loved most was the huge backyard and our century old farmhouse. Now I see it with a different lens.

Our desire for large footprints in and on which to live make many changes more difficult and therefore make it harder to mitigate the climate emergency. Because we can afford to, my family reduced our carbon footprint by installing an air source heat pump and hybrid hot water heater and we do have an electric lawnmower and because we’re lucky enough to live in a 15 minute neighborhood, we’ve been able to reduce our car use significantly gaining health benefits too and our big backyard, while we’re converting it to vegetable and flower beds and a section of trees and understory shrubs and bushes and it makes it easy for us to be composting. We have been composting all along and to include our neighbor’s green waste as well. My household contributions to greenhouse gas emissions can and have been reduced by choices we’ve made by the good fortune of where we live and because we can afford to.

I applied the seat plan for committing to bringing everyone along and contrasting the different household contributions to greenhouse gas emissions as well as the different opportunities people have to mitigate. While there is a great emphasis on what residents can and should do as part of the plan, again, businesses, corporations, public institutions and governments must step up and lead by example, as well as policy. In addition to the points in my letter, I would also encourage London to follow the lead of San HPC. Committed to taking climate action, they became the first municipality in Canada to offer a rebate program for e-bike purchases in a move to get more locals less dependent on their cars and more interested in cycling.

And London could go a step further and offer rebates on regular bikes. And if you think our climate is a problem, Yukon has already had this rebate program in place for more than a year with tons of pickup. As others have suggested, I would encourage allowing implementation timelines and benchmarks to the four year term of the city’s civic leadership. Accountability is critical and for too long, climate action has been punted down the road.

Finally, I look forward to a time, hopefully in the near future, when London reopens the bus rapid transit or light rail file to look again at some important corridors currently being missed. In closing, many of us won’t be around in 2050. We won’t know if targets were met, but we will fill the effects for as long as we are living because climate change is affecting us now, directly and indirectly. Councillors, I ask you to be courageous and to be bold.

Your decisions, your leadership will make a difference. Thank you. Thank you. I wonder if Mike Wallace is in committee room.

And if he is, could he please come forward? And as he does, please wait for me, Mr. Wallace, please. And that is your welcome to add your address and you’ll have five minutes.

Please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Councilor, my name is Mike Wallace.

I’m representing the London Development Institute here this evening. So far, the only business group to come forward at this PPM. Our address is at 562 Wallace and Street, just up the road. We are working under the assumption that the seat will be approved by Council.

And so our comments are very, very specific to the area of focus, number three, which is transforming building and development, the work plan that’s there. And we support the statement that’s in the work plan that the purpose of this work plan is to set it in an initial direction for collaborative discussion, action and measuring progress, how the work plan will be operationalized aged. This will be determined in early 2022 through additional consultation with key community stakeholders and partners. So we agree with that position.

And we have, I wanna thank you for within the document recognizing us, LDI and the London Home Builders. Association as key partners to talk about the transforming of the building development work plan and going forward on some of the recommendations that you have in there. We do believe that it’s important, not just to have outreach to community groups, interest groups such as ours and those you’ve heard it’s from tonight, but you do as a Council and somebody who has many years of political experience myself, you need to reach out to the general public somehow to make sure that if you want things to be understood and the uptake to the general community, you need to do a greater outreach. I don’t have the answers to that piece, but we think that that’s important.

And we’ll give you just one example. One of the targets in terms of up for discussion are reducing or eliminating natural gas as a heating source for homes. Now, somebody like myself who grew up in a house that was heated by electricity, I understand that that’s a very viable option, but the public needs to understand that that’s a direction that you may be going as a Council, that you would be asking the building community and the development community to develop all the new housing in 2030, which isn’t that far away to be completely electric. There’s lots of issues around that.

I’m just saying that one of the things that we think is missing is that the outreach needs to go beyond the usual suspects. And for this plan to actually get implemented, which is what I’m assuming everybody wants, including us, to make a difference in climate change, you’ve got to get by it, not just from the groups who have a particular interest or have been involved in this issue for many years. Three little tiny things we suggest in terms of actual wording that’s in the document. And I’m just focused on focus three.

We suggest that you change the name from key actions to adding something, what potential key actions, work plan key actions. It just implies that these are things that are going to be done for sure. And you are asking us and everybody else from consultation basically through this work plan. You can’t assume the messaging that’s there using those words, it makes it look like those are a fee to complete that that’s what’s actually going to happen.

You’re really asking for consultation on those potential items to have. So that’s one key word because I think wording and messaging is important on this particular on it to make sure that we able to accomplish what we’re setting up to do here. In the sections throughout you’ve got review review review which we support means it’s consultation so on. There are a number of spots.

I have no idea why you stop using the word review. I’ll give you one example. You’ve got the reduce or eliminate parking minimums which is fine, but there’s actually your city staff are already out consulting on that particular item. And all we’re saying is that where there is no word for review, we think you should add it in there just for clarity, purpose and consistency.

30 seconds please. Yep, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And there are a number of areas where we have questions of course on what does this actually mean.

So we look forward to the consultation. Staff have been proactive with us thus far in terms of getting input from us on the actual plan as has been set out and the number of reports has come through council. We want to hopefully that will continue. We’re happy to be there for that.

And that’s not just on those action, key actions you have but on the measuring opportunities that are there we make sure that we have input on those. Thank you for your time and good luck on your deliberations. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of council.

Right on five and Mr. Wallace, thank you very much. I know there are some members of the public who are in the committee rooms. I’m not sure if there’s anyone else who wishes to speak at this public participation meeting.

If so, would you please come forward and we will see you. And as we do, we will ask you to identify yourself, your name is optional and you’ll have five minutes. So if you would, go ahead please. Yeah, my name is Mike Bancroft.

I’m a former professor at Western chair of the chemistry department for 10 years. And I’ve taught the climate change for many years and I’ve been involved for the last 20 years come at 240 Village Walk Boulevard in North London. I wanna emphasize in response to one of the previous people that talked, this climate change is real and it’s being caused, the vast majority is being caused by human beings. 95% of scientists agree with that and the IPCC has done an incredible job to try and point out the errors, error limits and their estimations.

It’s not an exact science, nobody says that. It’s a difficult science, but there’s vast majority of credible scientists agree that this climate change is real. And we have to do something about it very soon. Or we’re in deep trouble.

This is critical. We’ve been sitting here now for three years and it was only eight years to go to 2030 and very little has happened as Don Millar has pointed out with regard to vehicles. The emissions from vehicles in London have gone up in the last three years and this is intolerable. How can we possibly reach the kind of estimates that this report mentions?

The report itself, I think, is really excellent. What other cities have put together such a document with the kind of examples, for example, of household emissions in page 39 to 45? In great detail, it’s really excellent. And this has to be communicated, as many people have said now, has to be communicated to public because the vast majority of the public, at least 90%, have never heard about this report.

And I’ve talked to a lot of my colleagues about it and no one has looked at it or read it. So one of the things that has to be done is that there are an executive summary and this is probably planned for the future. Executive summary has to be done with the, for example, one of the examples for households in that, in that executive summary. And hopefully that can be advertised in a wide, in a wide way through, for I suggest, for example, through London Hydro building.

Although even that might not access, but it would certainly access some people. And journalists such as Megan Stacy, have done an excellent job in trying to communicate this through the press. And there has to be a lot more press on this report and a lot more advertising or we’re stuck at 5% of Londoners knowing about it. So please consider getting this out to households which are 50% as has been said, 50% of the emissions.

So it’s the largest emitter and although there need to be systemic changes, individuals have to change their habits. Whether it be walking, cycling or buying an EV, as I pointed out in the examples in 39 to 45. And in the new section, 9.4, where they, which is again, excellent, trying to get people to see that buying an EV, for example, they will get that money back in five to seven years in many cases. And that’s a difficult challenge, I realize, because people do not like putting up the money.

And then that kind of extra money to begin with. But they get it back and that has to be communicated as well. So hopefully the city can come through with more incentives as has been mentioned and disincentives for gas usage. And I urge you, I urge you that you have to pass this tonight.

30 seconds, please. That’s all I need to say. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, sir.

I wonder if there are any other speakers from the committee room who wish to make a representation. If you would come forward, please. Yes, hi, if you does teach your name, your address is optional, and you’ll have five minutes as from now, please. Thank you, my name is Amber Cantel.

And I’m thanking everyone for the opportunity to speak here tonight. The last time I was before council, it was just at the start of the pandemic. I think it was on the budget. And I said at that time that trying to solve climate change would make your typical pandemic look like a cakewalk.

And here we are two years later and what a terrible and long cakewalk it has been. So we’ve spent the last two years in crisis. And I know myself and I think everyone else is exhausted. But for the last two years, the health community has mobilized and responded to this crisis.

And thanks to their incredible effort as well as the efforts of government and citizens, the end is finally, finally in sight. Part of that response has been daily updates on infection rates, vaccination rates and deaths. And they did that every day because it was a crisis. And that was the kind of response it took.

And thanks again to this, the end is finally in sight for COVID. But the end is nowhere near in sight for climate change. Even the very best scenarios show steadily worsening impacts through at least 2100. We’ve spent the last two years with COVID.

We are going to be spending the next 80 with climate change. Then those impacts are going to get year worse, year after year after year. Climate change is a crisis unlike anything our species has faced before. It will affect every single person and civilization on the planet.

It will lay waste to entire coastal communities and nations. It will burn our towns and forests, exacerbate poverty, homelessness, disease and war. The UN and IPCC announced this week in order to have any chance of keeping warming below the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees. Emissions must peak in just three years.

Three years to transform economies worldwide and hopefully rescue our future. And after we peak, emissions must fall rapidly and steadily year after year after year. So you can probably guess where I’m going with this. While the SEAP is an excellent plan full of great ideas and important ideas, the first milestone of the plan is eight years away.

That is far, far too long. Many speakers here tonight have called the four year milestones to align with the budget. But if you do that and you fail, if you fall short, it will be too late to say oops and correct your course. As the IPCC has made clear, there is no more margin for error.

The window for that has closed. As such, I urge you to adopt not four year, but annual targets through to 2050 and to put systems in place to compensate and adjust any time you fall short, which has been the tendency of communities around the world over the last several decades. Personally, I don’t actually care very much how the city achieves its emission reductions. But I care enormously that it does not fail.

And as the head of the IPCC said this week, it is now or never. So I urge the city to adopt and fully fund the plan and to support city staff in implementing it. Do whatever you need to do, but please do not fail. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Are there any other speakers and committee rooms? Please come forward. Any other presenters who wish to come forward and make a representation?

This will be the last call. Hi, Mr. Mayor, there are no other speakers. Thanks very much.

So with that, I’d like to first thank everyone who has made a representation both in person with Zoom and also with written representations that is all exceptionally helpful for Council. So with that, I’ll look for a motion to close the PPM. Councilor Palosa, seconded by Councilor Hillyer. Thanks very much.

Any comments or questions? I see none. So with that, we’ll put that to the vote, please. This is on closing the PPM.

Your worship by vote, yeah. So noted, thank you. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 15 to zero. So colleagues, we’ve heard some impassioned perspectives in tonight’s meeting.

Less queries to Mr. Stanford, but if there are any that you have, you’re certainly welcome to direct them accordingly. But I’m at the pleasure of Council as to where you wanna take this in terms of there are a couple of options as I see. One is that we acknowledge the information that’s been received, received the report and you’ll see that there is a draft wording to that effect, acknowledging as well the communications that have been received.

The second is that we look for a motion that will approve the plan or some aspect of it and introduce a by-law to enact the plan. So I’m at the pleasure of Council as to what you would like to do to begin this discussion. I see Councilor Lehman, go ahead, please. Thank you, Your Worship.

Oh, and first of all, I wanna thank staff for taking on this very complex task that was handed to them by Council. Governments around the world are struggling with how they respond to this real emergency that we face. Staff presented us with a fulsome report and then went through the proper process of engaging Londoners and Council as well on our thoughts. They have given us a report that we can receive, but I’d like to go one step further.

I’d like to make a motion that goes by the suggestion of staff that the final, final Climate Emergency Action Plan attached as Appendix A be approved by this committee. The final Climate Emergency Action Plan fundamental foundational actions attached as Appendix B be passed as well by the committee. And finally, the proposed by-law to authorize and approve a memorandum of understanding with the University of Western Ontario to advance joint climate change mitigation and adoption research technologies analysis and knowledge attached as schedule A to the by-law attached as Appendix C to clerk has that motion in hand. I have a number of comments that I’d like to make and I will do once this is on the floor and with the conversation that follows.

So your worship, I’ve made that motion to put that on the floor. So let’s see if you’ve got a second one. Well, I’ve got a couple here already. Councillor Humwoo, please.

You wish a second. Thank you very much. So let’s bring this open for discussion colleagues. So we had two options and we’ve seen a motion that’s on the floor and in a moment, I think we will see that as we refresh our screens shortly as to what that motion looks like.

And with that, why don’t we? Yeah, you’ll see that now colleagues in the as you refresh your screens. I’ll turn it over to Councillor Landon. Thank you.

When I first saw this report, I saw a challenge in many areas. And I think what staff has done is has made to take in concerns from all of us and the public. And it’s produced something that I’m pretty impressed with, to be honest with you. And so they should.

It was mentioned that climate change effect by Canada is 1.5% of the world’s action. But that being said, is that an excuse not to do our part? The effect that London has on the global areas is obviously far less. But if everyone felt that way, nothing would get done.

It’s easy to have taken the spotlight off this with COVID and the world events that are going on in the Ukraine. But as we’ve seen with the recent report, we looked by the UN just the other day. We have to continue on addressing this issue. In my lifetime, I’ve seen a crisis of population growth in the world, food, the ability to feed the planet, the pollution of the ozone layer and pollution.

There was a time when we couldn’t swim in Lake Erie. As was mentioned by one of the presenters today, mankind, when they get their mind to it, are capable of great things to address the challenges that have presented to us historically. What also has been mentioned today, it’s important for our actions to be explained properly to the London citizens and taxpayers. We have to have their buy-in on this.

We’re not going to get there by simply issuing edicts and expecting the world to change. This is a community effort that needs to have people seeing where they can do so individually and also with the government help. We have to do this as well as another presenter said, in an economically sustainable way and also a formal way. This will not get to where we want to be if it creates solutions that are not economically feasible.

Because then again, it doesn’t go in to getting the buy-in from the public. Like most about this document, as one person said, it is a living document. It provides for a consultive way forward, not just now, but as we go through the process, because eventually the big heavy lifting will be done when we get to the four-year budget timing. There’ll be time for many public consultation efforts to guide us, not just now.

This will be for our lifetime. We will continue to address this problem as new technologies come to bear. And as we see the effects, both in action but also on action. I think this is a really, this is a good start.

It’s a workable start. It’s one that I think provides ourselves and also future counselors, a roadmap to get to where we need to go in these times. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I now have Councillor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship. And I’ll say to everyone who presented tonight, thank you for your time and for your thoughts on this. Councillor Lehman, thank staff, but I think it is worth saying again, consider role amount of effort has gone into this already.

And of course, some of the items that are in this plan as Ms. Frank pointed out are already in action in other plans and are moving forward. And in some cases, there’s budget commitments already made for those. So this is a good start and it’s not that action hasn’t already begun.

I think that that’s really important. I did hear it said tonight that this isn’t a political decision and I’m gonna say respectfully, all of these decisions are political because it requires the buy-in of the public. And this is a democratic country. We have to get the majority of people buying into taking the steps that are necessary or we will fail.

We will fall short if we do not have the public buy-in. So yes, it is a political decision. It’s a community decision. And by the nature of that, we need the public support.

So it was said by a variety of folks, a lot more consultation is gonna be needed along the way. And this is a living document. There are, as Mr. Wallace pointed out, many mentions of reviews happening as this rolls out.

I think that’s really important. You know, when I knew that this was gonna be on the agenda tonight, honestly, I thought we might be sitting here till 11 o’clock at night listening to public messages. And we aren’t. And a big part of that remains that this report is not well known by the public.

And I appreciate staff feeling very good about the engagement that they were able to do in the last six weeks. They only had six weeks to do it. So there was a limited opportunity to bring people in. But in a city of 420 plus thousand people, we haven’t really even received input from 1% of them.

So to me, that remains a concern that we’ve got to engage people more in this process, especially because many of the things in here are individual actions that we’re encouraging people to take. There will also be many, many, many more discussions that are going to have to happen with our other levels of government. And I think it’s really, really important to underscore this. The city cannot do this alone.

You know, I heard a number of people talk about financial tools. While there are only so many financial tools available to the city, we do need engagement from other levels of government to help with some of this funding. I said this when the report was before us previously. You know, when you look at, and we’re going to talk later about council compensation, if we’re the median income of Londoners, well, I’ve looked for myself without five figures to outlay up front.

Right now, there aren’t really incentive programs that I can take advantage of. So that means a whole lot of Londoners out there are going to be financially excluded from taking part in doing things at home that can help them meet our goals. So we are absolutely going to have some really blunt discussions with our federal and provincial partners that funding needs to be on the table for this. It is a beginning, you know, and we’re seeing some positive steps already from the federal and provincial government on electric vehicle production.

That’s a good thing. In fact, I think it’s a very good thing. People are still going to need ways to get around, and they are still going to need jobs. And electric vehicles are doing both of those things.

We heard some speakers talk about the in and up value of the London plan. Yes, that matters. We also have to be mindful of the fact that if we’re not going in and up, and if we’re not in filling within the urban growth boundary, and if we’re not even willing to entertain whether or not changes have to be made to that line, we saw from a report that was issued last week by Mr. Moffatt.

People are moving outside the city, longer commutes, and losing agricultural land in the counties is not good for climate change either. So we have to be mindful that there’s a lot of moving parts here. But I’m very comfortable with where staff is landed, and I’m supportive of moving forward with the approval of this tonight. Thank you, Councillor Lewis.

Any other comments or questions, Colleagues? I see the Deputy Mayor, please. First, I would like to now declare formally a pecuniary interest on part D, which is the authorization to approve the memorandum of understanding between the city and the University of Western Ontario, as the University of Western Ontario is my employer. But I am comfortable making comments on the climate emergency action plan, parts A, B, and C.

So I’d be happy to do that this time, but I need to make that formal declaration, ‘cause I won’t be voting on D, and I’d like to have that voted on separate, please. So noted, thanks very much. Go ahead, Colle, Deputy Mayor. Okay, now I’ll make comments on the climate emergency action plan, and I won’t echo what my colleagues before me have said.

I do want to, though, thank Councillor Lehman and Councillor Hammeau for being willing to move this forward. I think that was certainly a theme in the comments tonight that they would like to see us start in these actions. I know the development of the plan has been a long time coming, but the other thing that I heard is that the plan is excellent. And so sometimes a good thing takes a little time to develop, and now that we have it before us, there is no reason to delay in moving to the next step on this.

So I’m certainly supportive of the motion that my colleagues have put on the floor, at least the parts that I will be voting on. I also want to add something new to this discussion, and I think excellent points have been made about the city’s role that it can play in reducing our greenhouse gases and contributing to what needs to be a global effort on this. But part of the plan is also the mitigation actions that the city needs to take. We know that climate change is here, and we know that some actions are coming our way, and some consequences of a lack of action over the years are coming our way, regardless of what we approved tonight and the path will take forward.

And so our efforts towards mitigating the impacts of climate change in this plan are necessary, and an engagement with our federal provincial partners on assisting us in assisting cities in funding that is really important. And certainly, I know through the work of the FCM, the federal government has increased funding towards the disaster mitigation fund, and cities have been able to access that like the city of London. So mitigation is important, because we may be a small city in global terms. But this plan is our small part on how we can take action to make our contribution to this effort.

But part of it is also about what we need to prepare for if others do not. And so both our climate actions are important, as well as those components about preparing for the mitigation of the impacts of climate change as well. I commend our staff for an excellent report. I wanna thank the public as well for some excellent comments.

And as has been said, there will certainly be the ability to adjust moving forward. I do think that aligning with the four year budget makes sense, because that is how we fund things like our strategic plan. We develop a strategic plan, and then the pacing and prioritization of that plan happens in the four year budget. It makes sense that the climate emergency action plan could align the same way.

So those are my comments, and I look forward to hearing other thoughts from other colleagues. Thank you very much. Councillor Hopkins, please. Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair. And I’d just like to make some comments here. And we’ve heard tonight, the great job that staff has done on this plan. And I wanna give my thanks to staff.

There’s a lot of work that went into that. And even though it’s taken a while to get to us, I have to acknowledge the dedication of staff and the will to wanna do it the best way possible. And I think that’s where we are here tonight. I also wanna thank the community for coming out and being engaged.

As a Councillor, I have learned an awful lot from the community. I think to some extent, the community is probably a little bit ahead of the game. And I think we have to really acknowledge that there is a will in the community to have a climate change plan. And I think that’s where we are here tonight.

And Mr. Chair, I would like to address Council and yourself and thank you for approving this plan. I think that is where I feel, I guess the happiest that we’ve all come together recognizing the will in the community staff’s work. And we’re making a decision here.

And to me, this is a very, very important decision because now we can move forward with actions. The aligning it with our four year budget to me makes so much sense. It’s where we make a lot of our decisions is through our budgeting process and having this plan and the decision and the funding that goes with that just makes a lot of sense. But I think we’re all on the same page of wanting a city that is livable.

We all want that. And we want to bring everyone together, not only the community, but also the systematic changes that we’ve already started and need to continue. And having that continuous engagement with the community and the ongoing conversations, I think it’s an exciting day here in our city and support moving this forward and can’t wait for actions to start to happen. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor, I have Councillor Flosa, please. Thank you, Your Worship. And thank you to the public for saying their comments ahead of time and for some joining us this evening, reading the feedback in the report, recognizing that absolutely this was done and put together at a tremendous speed, recognizing the importance of this issue by staff and doing diverse community engagement. And it is the start of the conversation, certainly not a one and done.

This is going to be an organic document that will, when accepted this evening, live with Council of this Council and Councils to come. And having seen in 2019, when we declared the climate emergency, quickly the public said, great, now what? And other municipalities, as they declared them, their citizens asked, now what? Where’s your actions to go with words?

As we’ve seen in 2021, as some reports have come through Civic Works Committee, looking at the corporate energy consumption and other activities that we’re doing and how we handle our waste, it became very clear that as we’re being environmentally responsive, the results and these energy efficiencies are also coming back in monetary gains and realizations for the corporation as well, that not only is it smart to do this for the environmental aspects, it’s wise in a budget conscious manner as well. So happy to endorse this plan, looking forward to seeing it grow over the years to come and really grateful to the community for this conversation and the support realizing this is vital. And as we talk of election cycles and aligning it, and we realize as a council that the infrastructure and the programs that we grow today aren’t even just to serve the electorate of today, it’s those who are gonna be Londoners and proud Londoners realizing the gains that we’ve made today in the decades to come. Thank you.

Thank you. I’ll now look to Councillor Hamou, please. Thank you. First of all, thanks to staff for all of their hard work.

I’m really excited to second this plan and to get it passed through council. I heard the comments this evening and read through all the materials sent to us before the meeting. And I’m excited to talk to Londoners about the circular economy, walkable cities, more biking, more local initiatives and creating buy-in from my community and all the citizens of London. I trust the staff at this point to keep us on track by creating four year targets tied to council or budget cycles, determining intermediate next steps, defined specific and immediate priorities in 2022 to 2024 and creating a short-term budget for these new initiatives.

I know the people in my ward are eager to see this plan passed. So we can start working on some of the pieces of this policy. I believe I actually have a meeting tomorrow evening with some of my neighbors to get through some of the policy stuff in the plan. I’m excited about some of the progress the provincial government is bringing forward more electronic vehicles and the federal government’s funding for mitigating climate change.

But they do need to do more for municipalities. And so I’m happy to second this bold and aggressive climate action plan and happy to see this come to fruition. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, Councillor Cassidy.

Thank you, Your Worship. I have some questions and if it pleases your worship, I’ll come back later, a letter that colleagues speak. I’ll come back later with comments, but I do have some questions for staff on this report. Go ahead, please.

Thank you. So first of all, again, my thanks added to everybody else’s to the community who has come out to speak with us tonight to city staff for a fantastic report. My first question is in the list of stakeholders who were engaged throughout this, I did not notice the school boards. And I wonder if there was any thought given to engaging the school boards.

And by school boards, I mean actually teachers and students very specifically. I think they kind of have a, the young people have an understanding of this issue that we probably underestimate. Mr. Stafford?

Through the chair, the school boards are on our list for going forward during the development of this plan. Schools were in such a challenge of their own that we chose not to engage them directly. We know their priority and in fact, they are specifically listed in our under engagement, of course, and of course in the one where we’re going to be developing a better model for taking our high school kids through college and university, keeping them here in London and having them be more climate-wise. So that is part of the go forward strategy, but not part of during the development.

That’s your question. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I completely understand with COVID time, but I’m really glad to hear the big plans going forward, especially targeting students themselves.

There was a comment from, in the report that came from the public about using city land for things like solar, wind, et cetera. Is that something that will be considered as well going forward? Mr. Stafford?

Through the chair, absolutely. We’re looking at that right now, right down to locations such as what could go on closed landfill sites, what could go next to operating landfill site. And of course, other areas such as our wastewater treatment plants, what opportunities do they represent that is part of our plan, correct? Absolutely.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So as somebody mentioned about parking in particular, I think they were just speaking about mostly, I think on private driveways and things like that, but the idea of green parking. I wonder if that’s, I know now that we have this climate emergency lens, when we’re considering some of the open parking fields by some of the downtown parking locations that are exempted right now from the ban on downtown parking, will that come into it?

Will we use the climate emergency lens to perhaps impose that on owners of private parking lots to perhaps make it greener or using permeable surfaces, things like that, but those kinds of things being considered. Mr. Stafford. Through the chair, I can offer a specific example, but what you have raised there are the items that we’ve already discussed with our colleagues in planning and economic development.

These are important discussions on what changes can be made at the right time, when in fact they are the most cost effective to do at that point in time. So those discussions have started internally. We have to then bring them to the development community. And in fact, you heard tonight from Mr.

Wallace, the openness of sitting down on these items, and we’re going to be taking them up on that offer. And in fact, it has started, and it must continue at an appropriate pace. And what you’ve suggested there are items that need to be considered. Councillor.

Final question, Mr. Mayor. Neighborhood decision making is mentioned in here, but I was looking at it from a different point of view, as in, again, using the climate emergency lens. Could we apply that lens when we are deciding on these kinds of projects?

So we get these projects every year. People vote on them. Could we add a criteria that says bonus points if it’s an environmentally sustainable idea or something that contributes to the city’s goal of net zero? Mr.

Stafford. Through the chair, once again, an excellent idea. That process has been very well received in the community. Environmental elements are looked at, but not at the level that you’ve just described, but that is the right type of change and the right way to get into a community to begin to influence them right before they start a particular project.

We are very open to bringing that up with Deputy City Mayor Smith in that case. Thank you, Councillor Cassidy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Those are my questions. I’ll let my colleagues go ahead and comment. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other comments or questions the colleagues wish to have? I see none. So, Councillor Cassidy, do you have any other final comments? You’re still on.

So any final comments you would like to make, please? In the famous words during COVID, you’re still on mute. Thank you. So maybe my comments will trigger other comments.

So, as Councillor Palosa hinted at as well, you know, how did we get here? How did we get to where we are today with this report and this plan? We make a lot of comments here at the council table. We say a lot of things and we think that, we think we’re right most of the time when we say them.

So, you know, some of the comments around advisory committees is being, you know, from past and current Councillors, you know, I don’t even know what advisory committees do or what, you know, it’s time to review this because we don’t understand what they’re doing. I will say this came to us because an advisory committee did exactly what they’re supposed to do. The advisory committee on the environment came to the plan. I think you’re frozen, Councillor.

Thank you, thank you. We’ll take a second. Councillor, we have no idea what that was, but if you want to- (indistinct) We still have no idea. So I’m not sure if you’re going to need to reset, but it looks like you are frozen in time.

We’ll let you have another go at that. So while Councillor Cassidy is collecting her technological thoughts there as we can, are you good to go Councillor Cassidy? I am not confident quite yet. There may have to be a reset on that.

So with that, I wonder if any other colleagues in the interim might have a comment or a question. And then we’ll turn it back to Councillor Cassidy. Excuse me. Councillor Turner, you go ahead and apologies, Councillor Cassidy.

We’re just going to kind of put you over to the sideline for a moment and then we’ll bring you back in. Councillor Turner, go ahead. Happy to fill this space. Thank you, Your Worship.

I’m very happy to see and hear the comments from my colleagues supporting this. And certainly from the community, your input is very welcome and very appreciated. We also heard from Mr. Stanford in his preamble that many didn’t see this as going far enough and or fast enough actually.

And we heard that from a number of comments from the community tonight as well. For those who say that cities don’t have an important role in this as say the national governments, they couldn’t be more wrong. It’s well recognized that also in this report, for example, that personal responsibility is paramount, but it will also take a lot of help from government and all three levels of government, in fact, all four, municipal, provincial, the federal and the international community too. And so we need to recognize that the government has a role to play in both helping with incentives and helping to encourage people towards greener behaviors, but also through regulation too.

And I raised this last time and there was some bristling about that, but I think it’s really important. When you take a look at the federal government, their work on gas tax is key. The investments in transportation, especially in mass transit infrastructure, rail, those kinds of things from the provincial government on transit, they’re really important. These are things that government can do.

Locally, this can be done through things like grants and rebates for cargo bikes, heat exchangers, electric vehicle charging, investments in transit and active transportation. On the regulation side, it can come in many forms as well. And in terms of our planning policies, we can look towards requirements for construction through intensification rather than sprawl. And that’s a key component of the London plan.

But right now, it’s a guideline and a suggestion that there aren’t really many controls within there. And we can put those in. Green vehicle requirements for vehicles for hire. We can take a look at the build standards for malls, for example, with large surface parking areas, having shade standards and permeability.

We can design and put those things into our site requirements. These are things that we should be thinking of. This was my concern with the plan as it was put forward. Because it didn’t really seem to go far enough.

It put a lot on personal responsibility and not enough on our responsibility as government to make sure that we can put the right nudge in the right place. Building requirements, this is something we can work with the provincial government in terms of the Ontario Building Code, those requirements. Some of the things that really help in terms of green builds might not be permitted or are very difficult to accomplish within the Ontario Building Code. And these are things that we should be working with our provincial partners to help encourage so that builders can take advantage of these and that there can be a market demand for it.

But we should also be looking towards creating an energy requirements for buildings because as noted in the report, buildings are a significant contributor to greenhouse gases. And further, when we take a look at the way we deal with our garbage, we’re moving towards green bins finally. Thank goodness, 60% was the target that was supposed to be in place in 2008. It’s 2022 now, that’s 14 years later.

So our target is 60%. And we’re going to achieve that in the next couple of years, now 16 years later from what the anticipated and requested to target for 60%. We should be going much further. And beyond just diversion, we need to be going towards reduction of waste.

We need to be putting some downward pressure to make sure that the amount of garbage put at the curb, whether it’s in the green bin, recycling bin, or in the garbage bin is much less than it is. So as I said, I’m happy to see such support from my colleagues. I was happy to hear the comments from Mr. Stanford to say this is a living document.

I was happy to hear the comments from the community asking for direct ties to council terms and budgets. I think it’ll be really important so that we explore things like carbon budgeting that directly tied with our actual financial budget. And I’ll be really looking forward to seeing how those things are incorporated. As said by a few of the presenters today, we need to get started.

So I’m supportive of the proposal as it is in front of us, but there’s still a lot of work to do. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor, I’ll do, I’ll go with Councillor Van Merbergen and then if we’re able to reconnect back to Councillor Cassidy, Councillor Redne Merbergen, please go ahead. I believe you want to make some comments.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. And I’d like to thank all those who presented. It’s certainly at the core of how we try to ascertain information and thoughts from a diverse group of people with their opinions. I have to say, by and large, I think this plan is certainly aspirational and it gives us some guidance on how to proceed going forward as we head towards 2050.

But I also think, as stated in the plan, as one of the major planks, that we want to bring everyone along. And if we’re truly committed to that, we are not going to achieve that if we start passing punitive and prohibitive bylaws in order to achieve certain targets, et cetera. So we’re going to have to approach this. This is very much, as has been stated, a malleable document, this is a living document, but we’re going to have to be very careful that we approach this with logic and rationality so that, yes, indeed, we can bring everyone along.

We also have to remind ourselves that we don’t do this in isolation. Even with the rest of our Canadian brothers and sisters, we still are part of an entire global system, the entire planet Earth and its atmosphere. And we just have to take just cursory looks at what’s going on in a country like China and see the billions of tons of CO2 emissions that are occurring just in the last year, according to the International Energy Agency, the IEA, around 12 billion metric tons of CO2 was produced by China and emitted into the global atmosphere. Now, you could say, well, maybe that’s their baseline, that’s where they’re at.

No, in addition to the around a thousand coal-burning electricity plants in that one country, there are plans for around 200 or so additional coal-burning plants to feed this behemoth of an economic power. Just in the last year, their demand for electricity went up by 10%. So we can see that these emissions are just rising and in a very large sense, colossal sense that here in Little Old London, Ontario, we can do all these nice things we’re talking about and it may not make any difference whatsoever. And I think we have to have our eyes open with that and realize that we are not certainly in London, Ontario, with all that’s going on.

And I haven’t even mentioned or others haven’t even mentioned what India is doing. So these large huge emitters from what can be seen will continue to emit and increase the emissions. Thank you. Well, thank you.

Councilor Cassie, do we have you back somewhere in the ether here? And I’m wondering if you have any concluding remarks you would like to make as well. At one point, we did see Councilor Cassie coming in and out. I’ll look for any other comments from colleagues with respect to this issue.

I think we have you there, so to speak, Councilor Cassie, go ahead, please. There we go. Sorry, I switched to my iPad and having some serious internet problems that I don’t usually have. So my apologies and thank you for your patience.

Please go ahead. So thank you. Going back to I think where I left off, we had an advisory committee come to our Council and make a recommendation that came to the planning committee and through the planning committee, they asked Council to make the declaration of a climate emergency. And as Councilor Palosa said, many people said, including some of us around the Council chamber said, what’s the point?

So what’s the point of a declaration? What will that get us? And so this is where we are today and this is what that declaration has got us. And fast forward from April 2019 to our budget process in early 2020.

I don’t think anybody would deny the overwhelming number of people that came out to make submissions to us during the budget process were people concerned about the environment and concerned about climate change. And I would say that these were regular individual Londoners. These were our fellow citizens, our neighbors, our friends, our community members. Some of them, like today, represented organizations that do this kind of advocacy, that care about the climate and are involved in an organized way.

But I would say the submissions that came to us during the budget process were well beyond that, well beyond that kind of organized advocacy. We had school children come to us. We had regular people just come and speak to us on the importance of this issue for them. And I was wonderful to hear from Mr.

Wallace. He always comes out and gives us the perspective from his organization and the perspective from the development industry in London. And I have a message to the development industry in London. This is no longer just vested interests that care about this issue.

These are everybody. These are our neighbors. These are our community members. And I gave a talk.

I gave a speech to FCM back in 2016. And in that speech, it was FCM Sustainable Communities Conference. And we talked about some of the things that were going on in London at the time. And I spoke specifically about West Five.

So that was a long time ago. I know right now in Ward Five, there’s a subdivision being built called Applewood. And it is a mixed-use community that is being built. There will be commercial.

There will be office space. There will be retail. There will be some restaurants and cafes there. It will allow not just the people living in Applewood to stay in their community, to get a bite to eat, to shop, and things like that.

But it will also allow people in the nearby neighborhoods to access what’s going on in Applewood as well. So my message to the development community is you need to catch up to the rest of Londoners. I can’t be talking about West Five 10 years from now, as, again, one of the few examples of these kinds of mixed-use developments going on in London. It takes everybody, us as individual Londoners, making changes in our homes.

Yes, we have to do those things. The business community has to do their part as well. And I’m really heartened to hear Mr. Stanford talk about the kind of consultations and collaborations that they’re doing with the business community, with educational institutions, with regular Londoners, all of those things.

That’s the only way we’re going to get to where we need to go. When we address things like greenhouse gas emissions and carbon and these things, it doesn’t just— it doesn’t just address those numbers on a chart. It makes London a better place for all of us. If you think about air quality and reduction of smog and air pollution, that’s going to make a better place for you and I walking down the street, playing in our parks, things like that.

30 seconds, Councillor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am at the end of my comments.

I am really pleased with this report. As you might be able to tell, it took me so many tries to get back into this meeting because I really wanted to share my enthusiasm. So thank you very much. Thanks for your patience again.

Not at all. It is said that persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. There we have it. Councillor Vanholz, do you up next?

Thank you. I’ll brief the best way to evaluate a plan sometimes is just to try it out. So I think that’s what we should do here. I would say that probably one of the most effective things we can do is find a simple strategy that would be attractive to communities around the world.

And if they were able to implement that as we did successfully, then that would make a much greater and leveraged effect of our efforts. So I hope we can achieve something like that. And thank you. Well, thanks for much.

I have no other speakers on the speakers list. I guess I do. Councillor Halmer, go ahead. I thank you.

I appreciate the comments from members of the public, but also colleagues. Glad to see you. There’s wide support for the plan. I think it’s good.

And I’m happy to vote in favor of it tonight. I do want to say, though, that we’ve got a lot of good plans that are going in the right direction. We’re going to be faced either in this sort of council or future terms of council, with particularly challenging decisions around where people live, the kind of buildings that they’re going to live in, and where those buildings are located, and how they can move around the city. And going through the kind of transition that’s going to be necessary to meet our climate change goals is going to put a lot of pressure on people in terms of affordability.

There’s just a lot of things changing at the same time. Other levels of government can help with that transition. The thing that I think we really need to be focused on as the local level of government is the built form. What are we going to approve?

Where? What kinds of developments? And the transportation network? How do people move around?

What kind of options are available to them? Because especially when it comes to housing and transportation, we need to be building more cheaper options. The problem with cars is not just an environmental problem. It’s a cost problem.

They’re too expensive. They require so much parking, insurance, energy, place to put them. It’s a huge amount of money, and too many people can’t afford that mode of getting around. Lots of people can, but lots of people cannot.

And so when we’re managing through the transition on climate, we need to make sure that the housing that’s being built is more affordable, but it’s located closer to the places people want to go so that they can get that housing and not have such long trips in the first place, regardless of how they’re trying to get around. If the distance is shorter, the trips will be shorter, the amount of money they have to spend, regardless of how they’re getting around, will be less. And so I think those are going to be the tough challenges for process municipal council, making decisions around land use. If we keep building low density sprawl, but on the edge of the city, we’re just going to keep making the same problem worse.

We really need to stop that. We have to do the inward and upward part, and it’s painful. We’ve dealt with lots of these inward and upward discussions. They’re not always easy, but we’re going to have to make lots of them between now and then if we’re going to actually get to these goals.

That’s the part that the local government can really help with, where is the built form going to change and how, where are people going to live? Are we going to build more affordable housing options or continue on with things that are reached for too many people? Thanks very much. Often colleagues will say, well, that’s it.

But I guess that was it. So any other comments, colleagues, before we call the question? So what I’ll do is I’ll turn over to the clerk because we’re going to be splitting the question slightly as a result of what the deputy mayor indicated was a potential conflict under D as it relates to the relationship with Western. But why don’t I get the clerk just to clarify what it is we’ll be voting on, please.

Thank you through the chair. I will open up the vote first for parts A, B, and C of the motion. So as long as that’s clear, then we will call the vote. Mr.

Mayor, I will vote verbally, yes. Thank you. Opposing the vote, the motion is passed, 15 to 0. Now the balance of the motion as duly moved and seconded, we’ll call the question.

Vote verbally, yes, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Councillor Van Merebergen.

Opposing the vote, the motion is passed, 13 to 0, with two recused. Thank you. Turn your attention to items for direction. Item 4.1, we start with the 2021 Council Compensation Review Task Force final report.

Now, I am led to believe, unless my information is otherwise correct, that we have the chair of the Task Force in virtual attendance. I see Dan Ross there. I wonder, Mr. Ross, if it may be helpful, I know you’ll certainly be available to answer any questions.

But can you give us a high overview of the report? And then certainly, if anyone has any questions, if they’re assuming there’s a mover and a seconder, then we’ll proceed accordingly. Could we ask you to do that, please? I’m happy to do that, Your Worship.

It’s not necessary to go through the report in detail. I think it’s fairly self-explanatory, and I’ll just hit a few of the highlights, if you wish. I am the chair of the 2021 Council Capitol Compensation Review Task Force. I also chaired the 2016 Task Force.

So I have had the opportunity to not only visit this once, but actually twice. I’d like to start off by first acknowledging and thanking members of the Task Force. These people give up their time, and I think it’s important that they be acknowledged. Don Bryant, Joe Lyons, Christine Skrimzier, and Jeff Tuthol.

Their details on those individuals are in the report, but their commitment, their experience and intelligence was invaluable to the Task Force, and I do want to thank them. I also want to give a special thank you to our Deputy City Clerk, Sarah Korman. Her assistance and guidance throughout was extremely helpful and made all of our lives much easier. As you know, Your Worship, the Task Force is a creation of Council.

Its duties were defined by Council, and they’re covered in our report, but I do want to just make a couple of specific references. The duties as defined were to review the most recent median full-time employment income data for Londoners, to review, consider, and continue the work on the recommendations of any previous Council compensation review task force. And we were to make recommendations regarding implementation of any changes in compensation, which might include phasing and indexing. And I think equally important is to make note for members of the Committee and Council as to what we were not mandated to do, and that is we did not review Council’s benefit package.

We did not review the staff support model, and we did not review expense accounts. And it was our position that they simply did not fall within the terms of reference of the task force. We did have, however, some very helpful guiding principles from Council, and they should be repeated quickly. No Council should seek to serve in public office solely for financial gain.

The key motivation should be to serve and improve the well-being of the citizens of London. The system of remuneration must be transparent, open, and easily understandable. Remuneration needs to be sensitive to local market conditions. Recognizing that the role of Councilor is neither a full-time nor part-time role, but rather a unique role.

And the fair compensation that is reflected of the legislative responsibilities and day-to-day duties undertaken to fulfill the role of a municipal Council should be the objective of the task force. We did undertake extensive research. We looked at all of the legislation, the by-laws, the public policies, municipal, provincial, that do affect Councillors. Took those into consideration in our deliberations.

Public input was considered integral to the process. We did have input from the public, both by way of a survey, which was conducted at large, and a public meeting. We also surveyed members of Council to get their input on a number of issues that were before the committee. We’ve set out, under item three of our report, some general observations and considerations of the committee.

I will not go through those in detail, but would be happy to answer any questions later that any members of the committee might have. The recommendations, I do think, bear repetition. There’s only six of them. And I think they do flow from and are consistent with the 2016 task force report.

Recommendation number one is that consistent with current practice and effective with the commencement of the next term of Council, the annual compensation for serving as a word counselor be set at the 2020 medium full-time employment income for Londoners as determined from the 2021 census data. It being noted that while 2021 data will not be available until July of 2022, it will be available while prior to the effective date of any adjustment. The rationale is given there. Again, I will only mention a couple of points very, very quickly.

The task force, again, recognized that the role of a counselor is unique, and for the purposes of determining compensation, we did not consider it necessary to define it as either full-time or part-time in order to arrive at a decision. Rather, we sought to fully understand the time commitment, the content and responsibility of the role, and what level of compensation was necessary to enable effectiveness and efficiency so that Council members could perform their duties to the highest level of their ability. There was a clear desire by the public to have a simple made in London solution. The other thing I think that’s worth mentioning is that the Council member’s role does not constitute an employment relationship, but compensation needs to be set at a level so that it is not a primary motivator to run for office, but is also sufficient to ensure that income is not a barrier to running for office.

And I think those two points are important and need to be made. Recommendation number two, and this is likely the only significant new recommendation we’re making, is that the current formula for adjusting Council compensation on an annual basis be amended to be based on the average annual variation in median full-time employment income, determined from published census data over the most recent census period, 2021, as opposed to labor index or CPI as has been done, excuse me, has been done in the past. The rationale here was that we were seeking a method of annual adjustment that would be transparent, easily determined, and fairly reflective of London’s economic position. The most recent census data, census data, thus becomes a single point of reference for adjustment of compensation, both at the beginning of a council term and annually thereafter.

So it takes a lot of, perhaps, confusion out of the equation. Recommendation number three was that the annual adjustment in councilor compensation be automatic and administered by the civic administration. And while that adjustment should be transparent and reported to both committee and council in open session, it should be determined independently of council and implemented by the civic administration. And it is noteworthy that council compensation is currently published annually by civic administration.

Future reviews, we make recommendation number four, Your Worship, which is really largely a repeat of what was in the 2016 task force report as well, but I think, again, bears repetition. The review should be completed no later than six months in advance of the date that nominations are accepted for the next municipal election. We wanted this to be as much as possible a non-political process. Any adjustment should be effective on the first day of the next council term.

That is, the existing council is setting remuneration for the next council and not for itself. The task force should, as much as possible, reflect the diversity of the community. And ideally, the participants should have knowledge in the areas of municipal government, research, statistics, public engagement and compensation. It should be limited to no more than five individuals.

The review should include a review of major supports required for council members to efficiently and effectively carry out their role to the best of their ability. The review should consider if median full-time income remains an appropriate benchmark for council members compensation. Review should consider if the current formula for interim adjustments remains appropriate and public engagement should continue to be an integral component of the review process. And only one item from rationale that I would repeat.

And that is, while a major review of compensation once every four years is sufficient, the task force believes that a policy for annual adjustment is necessary to ensure that there is an independent mechanism for making interim adjustments that are in keeping with local economic data. We do feel that the interim adjustments are important and that’s why we moved to a more straightforward and hopefully easier, more easily determined method of reaching those adjustments. Recommendation number five, and this came from the engagement process that opportunities be explored to determine what online public spaces, web pages, social media, et cetera might be available in order to ensure that the system of remuneration for council, including annual adjustment is transparent, open and easily accessible and understandable to the public. And the additional recommendation is that the annual adjustments be reported to committee and council and recorded in the minutes of both committee and council.

And that was in direct response to input that we received online and is really directed toward creating and maintaining and educated and informed public and public participation, both of which are integral, we believe, to the council compensation review. And the final recommendation is one that we heard and felt should be addressed specifically to committee and council. And that is that the task force heard strong arguments from a few members of the public urging consideration of performance-based compensation for council members. The task force specifically does not consider this appropriate given the nature and performance of a council member’s duties, the vast differences in experience and approach, quantity versus quantity, and the very unique and different demands from constituency to constituency.

Accommodation of the above factors would, in our opinion, make it very difficult to create and enforce a system of performance-based compensation in an equitable manner. Performance for councilors will inevitably be measured every four years by the voting public. And your worship, that is our report and I’m more than happy to engage any questions. Well, thank you very much, Mr.

Ross. I wonder this for the purpose of certainly for any comments or questions that colleagues may have of their own or of Mr. Ross. I wonder, is there something that might be prepared to move the report itself for the purpose of discussion?

I see Councillor Fai from the layers, seconded by Councillor Lewis. So is there any other wishes to make any comments or have any questions of Mr. Ross for the purpose of this report? I see Councillor Lewis.

Thank you, Your Worship. I’ll be brief on this one. Thank you to the task force members for their time on this. I know it’s always a complicated and a little bit of a thorny issue and quite frankly, and I think Mr.

Ross alluded to the fact that there’s a great diversity in how councilors approach their jobs and in how the needs of the individual wards are met. So it’s very hard to come up with a standardized method. I will say that while I might not agree with the median income as the starting point, I think where the task force has landed is good for our current time. I think about the responsibilities that we carry and I’m not sure that we’re a median role, but we are definitely in the task force where it’s a unique role.

And I think that the most important part of this for me is moving towards allowing civic administration to do the annual increase as an automatic on a very straightforward, easy to understand formula, which I think the task force is recommending here. I think this is an improvement over the previous CPI and labor market index metrics. So I’m very supportive of that moving forward and sort of taking the, what I’ve said publicly, the political circus out of having to vote on our own pay every year, I think, by putting it in the hands of civic administration as the task force has recommended, makes a whole lot of sense. And in the interest of fairness for everybody, then it’s not a political decision in terms of self-interest.

It’s a decision that’s just following along with the formula outlined by a very knowledgeable panel of people. I know a couple of you. I know that you’ve put a lot of thought into this. So I appreciate that.

Thanks very much. I have Councillor Turner. Thank you, Your Worship. Just really quickly, thank you, Mr.

Ross, and to your committee as well. I know we’ve a lot of work into it and a lot of thoughts and that’s reflected in your recommendations. I had two questions, one was with respect to the recommendation that you have with respect to compensation is reflective of current conditions. Had you identified any conditions that may change that would be impetus for reevaluating the framework in terms of the way councils composed, the way council workload exists, the meeting schedules, those kind of things.

Mr. Ross, we did have those discussions. As I said earlier, most of that, quite frankly, was outside of our mandate by virtue of terms of preference. But there’s no question if you review some of the public comments that we got not only this year, but in the 2016 report, there is significant comment and interest in the public about what the future role of councillors might look like, whether that’s full-time, whether that’s part-time, whether we have the appropriate number of councillors, et cetera, it may be something, Councillor Turner, that at some point in time, merits further council investigation.

You know, I know we have the governance working group and there are various committees and council itself can review those things, but they were simply not within the purvey of the committee at this point in time. It’s why we added some of that in our general observations just to make council aware that those things indeed are on the minds of some members of the public. As far as dealing with emergency situations or any unforeseen change in circumstance, one reason we moved to the median for adjustment was to remove some of the peaks and valleys, if you will, but our thought ultimately was that, you know, subject to the appropriate process for reopening matters before council, council always has the ability to review in the case of significant unforeseen circumstances, whether that review would be by councillor or whether it would be by people independent of council, would of course be up to council at that point in time, but we did have an active discussion on that point and felt that our best course of action at this point in time was to make the recommendations we did, specifically one, two and three, and indeed, if there were unforeseen circumstances, they’d be dealt with at that time. Councillor Turner?

Very good, thank you. Second question, if I might through your worship, is just with respect to the ability to do the recommendation that staff administers the increases. My previous understanding and perhaps I’m wrong was that the legislation required us to pass those increases as a council and that we couldn’t just simply defer those to staff. That’s right.

Our information with staff was that what we’ve recommended is in fact doable and within the legislation, Councillor Turner, whether or not it has to come back for some sort of rubber stamp from council. Our feeling was that it had to be, or the information was that it had to be reported to councillor to council rather, and indeed we wanted it reported for reasons of transparency and to make it available to the public, but that civic administration was in and of itself available to invoke the change. Councillor Turner? That’s helpful, that is certainly a clause and something that I’ve been long advocating for.

I think it’s really important that it’s taken out of our hands, it ends up being a political hot potato in general to say that it’s not a political decision while us making the decision right now becomes makes it political in its own right. And we kind of get to dodge it by passing it over to staff. But I think it works in both ways, right. It keeps us from passing increases that are not appropriate and it keeps us from debating and doing things for optics because we’re scared to touch the compensation question.

It’s also one that has an inherent conflict in it for us. It’s one of the only ones that were on a conflict of interest. We don’t have to declare it because it’s something that we have to do as required of us to pass something that sets our compensation even though we each individually benefit from it. So I also recognize that the challenges in the public too, that there might be different economic circumstances that either adversely or positively affect the community.

And I think the recommendation here is sound because it ties our compensation to those same forces. It ties it to the earnings of the community and it ties it to the inflationary impacts of the community as well. So again, thank you for your work in time and I’m happy to support the recommendation. It’s a thorny issue always.

And I think Council’s got a history of taking your advice and sometimes leaving your advice, but I think this is sound and we appreciate everything you’ve done. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor. I’m not sure if there are any other speakers to this issue.

This has been moved and seconded. So with that and don’t go away, Mr. Ross quite yet, but we have no gift for you, but please don’t go away quite yet. We’ll call the question.

Vote. - Vote, yes. Thank you very much. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 15 to zero.

The reason I asked Mr. Ross to hang on is that you heard Councillor Turner make some references to Councillor Lewis as well to express the appreciation of Council for the work that the committee’s done. And I think it’s worth noting the names of the individuals who participated specifically and, you know, we don’t pay a lot, but our appreciation knows no balance. And in this case here, Dan Ross as chair again, our deepest thanks to you, Don Bryant, another member of the legal community as part of the voting members of the task force, Joe Lyons, a prof and director of local government, Western, Christine Scrimchard, managing partner of Scrimchard and Company, Jeff Tuthope, master of industrial relations at Queens.

And those are your five voting members. And in addition to that colleagues, we have task force clerk support from Sarah Korman and Kathy Saunders, our retired clerk. And additional staff resources from Anastasia Bush, Ian Collins and Glenice Tucker. So to all of those individuals that had a role to play and participate in this, heartfelt thanks of Council in doing this.

So Mr. Ross, I hope that you will take that back to the committee members with our deepest appreciation. I will your worship. And I thank you for those comments.

I will say that it was an excellent committee. They approached it with, I think some degree of enthusiasm. I think we all appreciate the job that counselors do. And our goal both in 2016-2021 is to enable.

It’s a job that needs to be done. I think the deliberation prior to item 4.1 on seat is a perfect example of how important things are these days. And I just, I’d thank Council and tip my hat to them for moving things in the right direction. So thank you.

And thank you as well. Colleagues, I’ll turn your attention out at 4.2. And by the way, normally typically it’s 6.30 as we know. We slip away for a little something, but I’m just mindful that we may just have a few minutes of business still to do.

But Councillor Cassidy, did you have, was your hand raised or were you adjusting the screen or your hair? I do that a lot actually. All right, so with that, I wonder colleagues, unless I hear otherwise, do you mind if we just push for a few minutes through to, with a few items there? I see one set of thumbs up, two sets.

So let’s just say yes. All right, good for all of you, thank you. There’s always one Councillor who will remain nameless who always look to make sure that that particular Councillor is good with this decision to proceed. So colleagues, we have a, and we are not naming names here today, we have a confirmation appointment to the Argal Business Improvement Association.

It is in your package to support that. I’ll look for a mover, please. And Councillor Lewis, do I have a seconder there? I have Councillor Palosa, thank you very much.

Any comments or questions? Councillor Lewis, please, if you would. Thank you, Your Worship. And I wanted to take this opportunity to share two comments actually.

The first is that we certainly look forward, pending Council’s approval to welcome Deborah to the Argal PIA board. It will be changing up the diversity of representation on our board a little bit, and filling a spot that had to be vacated by a departing business owner. So that’s some good news. I also wanted to take the opportunity, and I’d be remiss not to say that this will be the last communication that colleagues will receive from Randy Sidhu as our Executive Director.

Randy recently accepted a new position, taking on a new challenge, moving forward. He will still be working in the London community, and I know he will be doing great things in that role. We’ll be looking to bring forward a name that I’ll share with you later, in terms of the new Executive Director taking over the candidate search committee, has been working diligently away at that, and we have identified an individual. But of course, we want to bring that before the board first.

So I want to thank Randy for the service that he’s given to the Argal community. And we all know what a tough last couple of years it has been for small business in our community. And the Argal BIA is primarily small business. It’s family run and operated shops.

They are, yes, we do have some big boxes at the Argal mall, but for the most part, these are family owned and operated. And despite all of the difficulties that COVID has presented, the BIA is net positive in terms of the number of businesses who are participating as members. We’ve had businesses open despite these challenges. So I think that speaks very strongly to the future in the Argal and the Argal BIA being quite bright.

And we’ll look forward to new leadership continuing that trend. Thanks very much. Any other comments? So with that, we’ll call the question.

And as we call the question colleagues, it strikes me that when I imagine the various BIA’s throughout the city, how well, how well represented this community and the series of communities across the city have been treated. So well, Mr. Sidhu has been acknowledged and quite properly I’d like to extend that acknowledgement to all executive directors and all the staff and volunteers of the various BIA’s throughout the city. We’ll call the question.

I’ll vote verbally, yes, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 15 to zero.

Attention to 4.3 city appointees to Western University’s Board of Governors. Not so much appointees, but rather a process, I suppose, or request in terms of skillsets. But with that, our skills matrix, with that, I will look for a motion to accept the communication from Western. I see Councilor Fife Miller, seconded by Councilor Camus, comments or questions.

I wonder if I could ask Council Palosa to take the chair. I’d like to make a comment if I could, please. Thank you, first speaker, recognizing the mayor. Thanks very much, colleagues.

There are a couple of acknowledgments with this note, and that is the change to extend the appointment of Michael Lerner to June 30th, 2022. He was a municipal appointee. And the other is to acknowledge the end of Harold Usher’s term as June 30th, slightly early. But you’ll note that Rick Conrad, the chair of the Board of Governors, wanted to make it very clear how former Councilor Usher, that he will be acknowledged as having completed his full term.

But it gives us a chance, regardless, to acknowledge appointees like Mr. Lerner and I’d like to say Mr. Usher, I just want to say Harold, but for the great work that they do in terms of this appointment. And so you’ll see a term of references to what they’re looking in terms of the skills matrix that they may or may not, that they may or may not bring forward some suggested names, I do believe they will.

But I wonder if I could ask the clerk in this motion as well. Do we need to direct the clerk to publicize this appointment going forward or what would the process want? If you could help us a little bit, please. Through the chair, that is part of the motion that we will undertake to advertise for the two positions that will be vacated July 1st, 2022, and that this will not be one of the appointments that is done by the new council after the election this fall.

All right, thanks very much. Thank you, Councilor Palosa, I’m done. Thank you, Your Worship, and I have me on your speaker’s list. Thank you very much.

Why don’t we hear from Councilor Palosa then, please? This is a little bit like basketball in a curious way. Thank you, we’re just so friendly and we share space. So well, I just want to take this opportunity since we just finished discussing a councilor’s compensation and having reviewed the public’s feedback of how they view what we do in our agency board and commission work that this is an opportunity that Councilor Harold, former city councilor Harold Usher took on with great passion after not seeking reelection that he still wished to serve his community and more many former elected officials continue to do good work as we do on council.

And I just wanted to highlight for that public of just to throw the public eye, we’re still busy behind the scenes serving as it’s an honor to serve and just thanking all the, these two people come up to the end of their term on this board and all those residents who stepped forward to do good work behind the scenes on the agency boards and commissions that largely go unseen. So just thank you. And thank you for those comments. I think we all can relate to that as well.

So with that, are there any other comments before we call the question? Then let’s do that, please. Poting, yes, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Posing the vote, the motion is passed, 13 to zero with two recused. Thank you very much. And colleagues, finally, final item under deferred matters is an additional business is one item and it’s 5.1.

It’s the fourth report of the diversity inclusion and anti-oppression advisory committee. You’ll see that in that report is included a clause related to the FCM’s resolution related to strengthening Canada’s hate speech laws. And I know the deputy mayor was very active in that particular discussion and participation. I wonder if I can call on him, please.

Yes, thank you. I’m happy to move the direction that’s coming out of the diversity inclusion and anti-oppression advisory committee and I can give a little bit of context for my colleagues on why I attended the committee meeting and consultation with their chair. As you know, a petition was circulated in the community about some symbols of hate that have been flying on flag pools in parts of the city and in the petition, they referenced the work that the town of Collingwood had done to try to tackle this issue. Unfortunately, there’s a little bit of context that wasn’t provided and that is, although the Collingwood Council did pass a motion to ask their staff to find out how they could and symbols of hate, they did not actually end up being able to do so.

Their staff came back with a very comprehensive report that I actually went over with the committee and I had a chance to speak with one of my colleagues on the FCM who is a counselor with the town of Collingwood about the path forward that they took. Out of that report, they instituted a number of items very similar to the work that we’ve done on diversity inclusion at the city level. But with respect to the actual banning of the symbols of hate, the recommendation from that council was to go through the FCM to engage with the federal government on identifying symbols of hate the same way that the hate speech is identified through the criminal legislation potentially. That motion actually did come before FCM and I can tell you as your representative on the board of FCM, I did vote for it.

The committee was very interested in the content of that resolution, I provided them with a copy and they wanted to express their support for it as well. And so the motion you see before us is our advisory committee wanting to do what the town of Collingwood did and that’s expressed support for the work that the FCM is doing to encourage the government of Canada to address symbols of hate at the federal level. I also let them know that there is a private members bill currently before the federal parliament. It’s gone through its first reading and it specifically is to amend the criminal code to ban the exact same symbols of hate that were mentioned in the petition in the city of London.

So it was a very excellent discussion by the committee and I think this is a good action to take and the FCM resolution is appended to it again. It’s already passed FCM and we have already supported it through my vote as London’s representative on the board. But I’d be happy to answer any questions the colleagues might have and I’m happy to move this action at council on behalf of our advisory committee. Thank you, let’s see if you have a seconder.

I see councilor Cassidy, thank you very much. Comments or questions either for the deputy mayor or comments used to me. Seeing none, someone stuck in. Councilor Hopkins, please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair for recognizing me and thank you Deputy Mayor Morgan for attending the advisory group and bringing forward the FCM resolution. I do have a question around the resolution and just wondering maybe two questions. The resolution from what I understand relates to just online hate symbols and just want clarity around the bill that you had mentioned as it’s going forward and where are we with that bill and does it extend further into other areas of not just online, Mr.

Chair, for you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Yes, I’m happy to comment on both of those. So the FCM resolution was one that was crafted.

It actually came through the committee I chair at FCM and crafted by the town of Collingwood to address the concerns and fulfill the motion of their council. And part of the challenge and what the council talked about is not just that the symbols of hate should be removed but recognizing the huge psychological harm that can be caused by those symbols. And so you see that piece directly in the motion and they refer back to a parliamentary report for 2019 which included a number of actions that the town of Collingwood felt should be endorsed. The private members bill is not a government bill.

It’s an opposition private members bill. And I can tell you, sometimes those are successful, sometimes they’re not. It seems like there is a partnership between the federal liberals and NDP at this time and it is an NDP led bill. But it specifically dresses, criminalizing specific symbols of hate which would give authorities the same sort of actions that they would have who enforce the criminal code to address it in the way that is outlined in the bill.

You can actually read the bill right on the Parliament’s website but I can say, having read it myself, it specifically and explicitly addresses the concerns raised in the petition that had been circulating in our community very directly. It refers specifically to the Confederate flag as well as other commonly referred to as symbols of hate. So that’s, I hope that gives you the answers that you need, Councilor. Thank you, Councilor, any other questions?

Yeah, if I may, just as a follow up. So the bill is still going through the legislative requirements and we’re not sure where that bill is. Deputy Mayor? Yes, it’s completed first reading.

It has not reached second reading. I think as for where it will go, I can’t tell you. It’s the federal parliament and sometimes they keep going and sometimes they don’t. So good thing to engage your local MP on, I think.

So that’s a good starting point, Councilor. Yeah, I appreciate those comments Deputy Morgan because I think that is something that we can all engage our MPs and having a better understanding where the federal government is on these hate symbols and what we need to do to, I guess, have that, have a place where to go when we see these hate symbols. And it’s, I think, vitally important that we deal with it. If there’s a bill federally, that’s great.

But I would hope that we all engage with our MPs and try to find out a little bit more about the bill and pushing it forward. So thank you. I think that’s very good advice. Thank you, colleagues.

Any other comments or questions? There’s a motion on the floor has been moved and seconded. I see no other comments or questions. So we’ll call the vote.

I’ll vote yes, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. In the vote, the motion’s passed 15 to zero.

Thanks very much. This is a great week, first time back. And it feels very good to be back. And thank you for those who have sent notes and calls.

I appreciate it very kindly. But, you know, this week in particular is even more important than that because it’s actually public health week. And I had the opportunity earlier this week to acknowledge those in public health and thank them on behalf of Council and administration for their service. Those are often unsung heroes and the work they do both in as medical professionals and those behind the scenes is critically important for our city.

Second thing, and likewise, speaking of thanks, this gives me an opportunity to acknowledge the great work of our own city staff. Ms. Livingston, I hope you will take back to our staff, the appreciation of Council for the great work that you continue to do. We’re an important, we’re a strong city in this country.

And we’re well-run. And I give a huge credit to the staff and administration of this great city. So with that, I wonder, could we look for a motion to adjourn? I see Councillor Ryan Merberg and I see seconded by Councillor Hillier.

Thank you very much. Clerk, is it okay if we like did a show of hands or something like, let’s do that then. Let’s do a show of hands. If you really want to leave, show us your right or left arm.

That motion’s passed. Thanks very much colleagues. We will see you soon again. much appreciate for tonight.